


On a Cold, Cold Night

by Alchemine



Category: The Worst Witch (TV 1998), The Worst Witch (TV), The Worst Witch - All Media Types
Genre: Murder Mystery, Witchcraft, Witches
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-22
Updated: 2016-04-16
Packaged: 2018-05-28 08:16:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 15
Words: 23,083
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6321886
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Alchemine/pseuds/Alchemine
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>One of the staff at Cackle's has found a woman's body in the forest. Now it's up to them to help discover who she is and how she died.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Cackle's Academy woke slowly as the autumn days faded into winter. Pale sunlight streamed through the streaky glass of the castle's five-hundred-year-old windows and cast uneven shadows on the floor, and in dormitories and corridors, the girls began to stir, pulling on uniforms, splashing water on their faces, and applying forbidden lip gloss and mascara that they hoped would escape notice. The smells of semolina porridge and burnt toast filtered up through the stairwell from the kitchen, creating no anticipation among those who would shortly be eating them. Breakfast was the least dreaded of the twenty-one meals per week served at Cackle's, but still did little to excite girls who started their mornings at home with sugary cereal at best, or crisps and chocolate at worst.

Somewhere between the dormitories and the dungeon, Miss Hardbroom, who did not eat breakfast and who had fortified herself with a double shot of Wide-Awake potion just after midnight, was passing the early hours of the day by brewing up an experiment in her laboratory. When it was empty of young witches' noise and disorder, the lab was one of the few places where Constance felt truly calm. She enjoyed the methodical task of laying out her tools and ingredients in a sort of magical _mise en place_ , and found comfort in the rituals of measuring and stirring and adding each element at exactly the right moment. The cold did not bother her much, and even if it had, the small fire under her cauldron was enough to take the edge off the chill. She could happily have stayed all day, tinkering with different combinations, and often did when no other duties called her.

She was just tipping a beaker of pale pink liquid over her new creation, gripping it with a pair of tongs for safety's sake, when a voice spoke from the door.

"Constance, I need you to come with me."

"One minute, Headmistress," Constance said, still pouring the beaker's contents into the seething heart of the cauldron with a steady hand. "If I don't finish incorporating the oleander extract now, the whole thing will be spoilt."

"Right now," Miss Cackle said, and the strange tightness in her tone was enough to make Constance look up and set the beaker aside at once.

"What is it?"

"I think I had better show you instead of telling you." Miss Cackle glanced at the cauldron. "Can you leave it?"

"Not like this." Constance strode to the door, pulling off her protective gear as she went, and leant out into the corridor. "Griselda Blackwood, come here. No, not you too, Fenella Feverfew. Despite what you may believe, you and Griselda are not permanently attached at the hip."

Griselda, who had been heading to breakfast early in hopes of getting a piece of toast before it went soggy, came into the laboratory looking displeased but resigned. "Yes, Miss Hardbroom?"

"I need you to take this cauldron off the fire and when the potion has cooled enough, pour it down the disposal drain for dangerous substances. It will be extremely toxic at this stage, so wear gloves and goggles, and wash your hands when you've finished. If you're too late for breakfast, you may go down to the kitchen and get something from Mrs Tapioca before your first lesson. Do you understand?"

Griselda nodded, and Constance glared at her.

"Perhaps you didn't hear what I said, Griselda. If you had, surely you would have answered properly, would you not?"

"Yes, Miss Hardbroom. Sorry, Miss Hardbroom."

"Very good. Carry on." Following her own advice, Constance scrubbed her hands under icy water in the lab sink, and then departed in Miss Cackle's wake, leaving Griselda to sit hunched up on a stool, looking like a short, blonde mad scientist in her elbow-length gauntlets and leather goggles, and wait for the potion to stop bubbling.

"Headmistress, at least tell me where we're going," Constance hissed as they headed down the main stairs and toward the castle's great front doors. She prided herself on not being easily frightened, but Miss Cackle's silence, combined with the speed at which she was walking and the grim look on her normally kindly face, made Constance feel like throwing up the breakfast she hadn't eaten. She lengthened her stride, worried that in a moment she would have to break into an undignified trot to keep up. "Headmistress, _please_."

"To the forest," said Miss Cackle. "Imogen is waiting for us there."

"But why? What is it?"

Instead of answering, Miss Cackle herded her through the door and, after looking around to make sure no one was watching or listening, pulled her aside into the deep shadows of the gatehouse.

"She's found a body."

"A body?" Suddenly dizzy, Constance put a hand against the nearest wall so as not to fall over. The solid smoothness of its timeworn stone steadied her a little, and she went on. "Do you mean a _dead_ body?"

"Yes." Miss Cackle saw her deputy sinking and seemed to realise what was wrong. "It isn't one of our girls, Constance."

"Oh, thank heavens." Constance breathed out a long sigh of relief, trying to push away the image that had leapt fully formed into her head: Mildred Hubble, creeping out in the night and finally stumbling into some disaster from which there could be no recovery, killed by her own carelessness before Constance had a chance to teach her better sense. What would she have said to the girl's parents?

"Thank heavens," she said again, weakly. "But...if it isn't one of the girls, then who is it?"

"I've no idea." Amelia prodded her onward and they started toward the main gate. "Imogen was out for an early-morning run and found the woman—it is a woman, I know that much—near to the castle. She came straight away to notify me, and then went back to watch over the body until we could get there." They were crossing the lawn that led up to the forest's edge now, their shoes leaving dark footprints in the frost-white grass. "It isn't far now. Imogen said it was just beyond the tree line."

"There she is," said Constance, spotting a bright flash of colour between the tree trunks and tangled shrubbery and knowing it could only be one of the garish tracksuits that Miss Drill favoured. An instant later, Miss Drill herself came jogging toward them with a face full of frantic worry.

"What on earth took so long? I've been waiting ages. Anyone might have come along."

"Thank you for standing guard, Imogen," Miss Cackle said. "Can you show her to us, please?"

"Of course." Miss Drill ran an agitated hand through the short, fair cap of her hair. "She's just over here. I haven't touched her at all. The police don't want you to. I've seen it on television." She looked from Constance to Miss Cackle, searching for confirmation and not finding it. "We _are_ going to phone the police, aren't we?"

"We'll see," Miss Cackle said.

"What do you mean, we'll see? Someone has died! Why wouldn't we tell the police?"

"Because, Miss Drill," Constance said, "if she is a witch, then there are different authorities to notify. But we won't know if she is a witch or not until—"

At that moment, they pushed through some long, flexible branches and came upon a tiny clearing, and in it, the motionless shape of a woman lying huddled at the base of an ancient oak, with her back turned on the three intruders whose conversation was disturbing her quiet rest.


	2. Chapter 2

From where they stood, all that was visible of the dead woman was the back of a blue coat, wet with melting frost and scattered with leaves that had fallen from above, and a lot of curly dark hair topped with a knit hat. No one really wanted to go closer, even Miss Drill who had already seen the worst, but after a long hesitation, Constance steeled herself, approached the body and knelt beside it to see what secrets it might reveal.

"What makes you think she might be a witch?" Miss Drill asked Miss Cackle, who had not moved and was watching with a nauseated expression. "She isn't dressed as one."

"The way we dress at school and grand festivals isn't always the way we dress out in the world, Imogen," Miss Cackle said. "Not everyone is as dedicated to tradition as Miss Hardbroom."

"I should think no one is as dedicated to tradition as Miss Hardbroom," Miss Drill sniffed.

"I beg your pardon," said Constance icily, pausing in her investigation, "but perhaps you might refrain from discussing me as if I'm not here. Or would one of you like to come over and do this unpleasant task in my place? No? I thought not."

There was a brief, awkward silence, and then Miss Cackle continued. "In any case, it may be that she isn't a witch at all, and then we can simply call in the local constabulary, just as you said, Imogen."

"Or not." Constance glanced up at them. "She's not one of ours, but she's a witch, all right. Look at the ground underneath her." With her thumb and first finger, she moved a fold of the woman's coat aside, revealing a dark, scorched outline on the copper-brown carpet of fallen leaves.

"Oh, Hades," muttered Miss Cackle.

Constance, who disliked any sort of swearing, raised an eyebrow, but let it pass without comment.

"I see it, but what does it mean?" Miss Drill leant toward the body, forehead furrowed in confusion.

Constance let the coat drop and sat back on her heels, automatically wiping her fingers on her skirt even though she hadn't touched the corpse itself. "A witch's body is full of magical energy, Miss Drill. It renews itself throughout our lives, and when we study our craft, we learn to channel and control it. But when we die—when we die, it leaves us all in one great burst, and the result is what you see here. If not for the frost, it might have set the forest alight."

"Have you any idea what happened to her?"

"None at all." Constance put out a hand and Miss Cackle came and helped her up from the ground, casting a troubled glance at the dead woman's face as she did it. "There's nothing obvious—she hasn't been throttled or stabbed or hit over the head—but there are hexes and poisons that wouldn't leave a mark. Or she may have died of simple exposure. It was freezing last night, and in the absence of a broomstick, we can only assume she was travelling by foot for some reason. She might have stopped to rest and never got up again. It would only have taken half an hour or so."

"You're being awfully cold-blooded about it, aren't you?" Miss Drill frowned at her. "This is a person we're talking about, you know, not some sort of—of maths problem."

"I'm well aware of that, Miss Drill." Constance said. "And I have nothing but pity for her, but she _is_ dead. All her troubles, whatever they were, have ended. It is our troubles that are only beginning."

"We shall have to send a message to the Grand Wizard," Miss Cackle said with a sigh. "And he will have to report it to the High Council. And then they will send people to investigate us."

"Surely no one will think that anyone at Cackle's had anything to do with it," said Miss Drill, shocked. "Will they?"

"I hope not," said Constance darkly.

"Murder by magical means is a very serious crime, Imogen, much worse than the ordinary kind," Miss Cackle said. "In a community where everyone has the power to kill at their fingertips, it has to be. We had all best hope for our own sakes that our uninvited visitor has died of natural causes, or at least been murdered in some sort of mundane way, and that the High Council can find out quickly which one of the two it is."

"And that parents don't decide to remove their daughters from the school because of the scandal." Even as she said the words, Constance was assailed by a terrible vision of the castle abandoned, falling into ruins, and herself cast out of her home of twenty years and forced to go...where? She wrapped her arms round herself, wishing she had brought her cloak, and Miss Cackle patted her shoulder.

"I'm sure it will be all right, Constance. We shall just have to trust to the process."

"Why, though?" They both looked at Miss Drill in surprise, and she flushed, but went on. "If it's as bad as all that, why expose the school to it? You're witches, aren't you? Can't you just magic the body somewhere else and let some dustbin man find it? You said it yourself, Miss Hardbroom, the poor woman's already dead; nothing worse can happen to her."

Miss Cackle shook her head. "The High Council will find out if she's been moved. They have ways of knowing. We'd still be in for an investigation, only we'd look even more suspicious than we will if she's found on our property."

"Well, do your own investigation then, before you notify them," Miss Drill said, as if it were obvious. "No one knows she's here but the three of us and the person who killed her, if anyone even did. You could report it a month from now and they wouldn't know you hadn't just found her. And if you already had evidence of what had happened..."

"Imogen, I know you mean well, but I really don't think having watched a lot of police on the television is-"

"I agree with her," said Constance suddenly.

"You what?" Miss Cackle and Miss Drill tripped over each other's words as they said it, and Constance looked from one to the other.

"What is it the girls say? Snap?"

Miss Cackle seemed stunned almost beyond speech, but she finally found a reply. "Constance, are you of all people suggesting that we break not only school rules, but the ancient law?"

"If we let those vicious old wizards on High Council turn the ancient law against us, there may not be a school anymore," Constance said. "And I didn't say we ought to ignore the law altogether, only to delay it a bit. Not for a month, only for a day or two. Please, Headmistress. I...we have too much to lose."

The three of them stood there, staring at each other over the sad, crumpled heap at their feet. A gust of wind came along and rattled the leaves still clinging to the oak tree. Not far away, a muffled bell in the castle rang to signal the end of breakfast, and Constance locked her eyes on Miss Cackle's rheumy old blue ones as pleadingly as she could.

"Very well," the Headmistress said at last.


	3. Chapter 3

"We'll have to get the girls away from here, Miss Cackle," said Miss Drill, who seemed to feel she had obtained a degree in criminology from her extensive study of _Midsomer Murders_. "We can't carry on as usual and investigate a crime at the same time. If you cancel lessons they'll know something's up, and if we tell them this area is suddenly out of bounds, it will only encourage them to sneak away and see why. I would have done when I was their age."

"So would I," said Miss Cackle. "Can we arrange a school trip of a day or two at short notice? Preferably something educational?"

"Miss Bat has been longing to do some nature studies with them," Miss Drill said. "It's too late in the year for flowers, of course, but they could watch birds, or gather wild mushrooms, or—"

"Surely you don't mean to put _that woman_ in sole charge of sixty adolescent girls?" Constance turned on her colleague like a striking cobra, but Miss Drill stood her ground.

"Desperate times call for desperate measures, Miss Hardbroom."

"It might be a bit much for any one person," Miss Cackle said. "Suppose we send Frank Blossom along as well? He's a steady sort of man for the most part, and the girls adore him. With the older ones to help keep order, they should be able to manage for a short time."

"Fair enough," said Miss Drill.

"Constance?"

"If we must, we must," Constance said. She looked back at the dead woman and had a nasty shock at the sight of what appeared to be tears running down her stiff white face, before realising it was only the last of the night's frost melting away. "What are we to do about her while the arrangements are made? It will only get warmer as the morning goes on, and…well, I think we all know what will happen then."

"Perhaps a Sempiternus Shield over the clearing," Miss Cackle said.

Constance wrinkled up her nose in disgust. "Really, Headmistress? A wizard's spell?"

"Can you think of anything more effective?"

"I suppose not," Constance said irritably. She hated the wizard style of magic, which felt grating and unnatural and wrongly shaped, and had loathed every minute of the long-ago term when she had been forced to study it. ("We must understand the enemy, Constance," Mistress Broomhead had said, with the look that promised severe punishments if Constance dared to contradict her.) But she did know how to perform the spell, and if Miss Cackle wished her to, she would obey. "Shall I stay and do it, then, while you and Miss Drill go back to the castle?"

"Miss Drill shall stay here with you. No—" Miss Cackle held up a warning hand. "No arguments, Constance. If the woman's truly been murdered, there could be a dangerous person still here in the wood, and the last thing I want is for him or her to creep up on you when you're distracted. As soon as you've finished, you may come back to the castle together."

"Yes, Headmistress."

They watched Miss Cackle pick her way through the trees and start across the lawn to the castle, where no doubt trouble was already brewing as the girls sat unattended in classrooms. When she was well on her way, Constance turned back to Miss Drill.

"Very well, as you're here, you can make yourself useful and help me find a suitable stick. As the Headmistress said, this is wizards' magic, and it works best if you have a staff to concentrate it."

"It does? Why?"

"I don't know, Miss Drill, why do _you_ suppose men would want to wave a long, rigid thing about as a symbol of their power?" Constance kicked through the leaf litter, staying as far away from the body as possible, until she found a small, mostly straight branch, which she swiftly stripped of its clinging twigs and leaves.

"Oh," said Miss Drill.

"Oh, indeed," said Constance. She held the branch up to a thin shaft of sunlight that had broken through the trees above their heads, and sighted along it as if it were the barrel of a shotgun. "This should do well enough. You had better stand back a bit; I haven't worked magic like this in quite a while, and it's anyone's guess what might happen when I do."

Miss Drill, she was gratified to see, respected her judgment enough to take several large steps backward and watch the proceedings from the very edge of the clearing. Very aware that she was being observed, Constance stopped to gather herself and to focus her magic, letting the electric tingle build until her hands were nearly buzzing. With a mighty effort, she forced it through the unfamiliar channel of her makeshift staff, and as a green flare burst from the tip, she intoned, " _Suspendo sempiternum_!"

It was a clumsy and inelegant working, not at all up to her usual standard, but it was effective. A blanket of silence and stillness descended upon the clearing, as if the air had turned to something thick and translucent, like aspic. No breath of wind stirred, no animal rustled in the undergrowth. A few dry leaves hung invisibly suspended, arrested in mid-fall. At her feet, the dead woman somehow lay even more motionless than before, her arm in its damp wool sleeve eternally reaching out for help that would never come.

Constance dropped the stick and backed away to join Miss Drill, who looked impressed. After living and working with witches for several years, the P.E. teacher took most magical happenings in stride, but even Constance had to admit that this spell was a showy one-typical of wizards, she thought.

"Is it...frozen in time?" Miss Drill asked.

"Not exactly," Constance said. "Time will pass, but very slowly. Seconds will turn into hours, if not days. It should give us all the time we need to do what we must. The only other thing we need is a small spell to direct people's attention away, so anyone who happens in this direction will pass by without even noticing the clearing is there."

She pointed her fingers, almost giddy with the relief of returning to her own comfortable, natural way of magic, and cast the spell quickly. "And now we should get back to the castle. It will take every one of us to get those girls packed up and on their way in the space of a morning, and I have a few things to say to them before they go."

"Oh, Miss Hardbroom, it's an unexpected holiday for them. Can't you just let them enjoy it without lecturing them first?"

"I do not intend to lecture them." Constance glowered at her colleague. "I intend to remind them of the behaviour I expect of them, so there will be no need to lecture them when they return."

"If you say so." Miss Drill turned to go, and then turned back. "Oh, and Miss Hardbroom...thank you for backing me up with Miss Cackle. I don't think she'd have agreed to this plan if you hadn't."

"I said what I said because I thought it was the best course of action, Miss Drill. Not to _back you up_." Constance pushed past her and promptly got a face full of leaves from the nearest shrub for her trouble.

"Well, thanks anyway," Miss Drill said, and followed, taking care to duck.


	4. Chapter 4

Before they had even got past the gatehouse, both Constance and Miss Drill heard the sounds of chaos emerging from inside the castle. It was like a railway accident combined with a football riot, and it made them pull up short in the cobbled courtyard and exchange a wide-eyed glance.

"What on earth is all that noise?"

"My guess would be that the girls have been informed they are going on a surprise expedition," Constance said, "and Miss Bat is supervising."

Without another word, she folded her arms and transported herself into the entrance hall, where she was nearly knocked over by a pair of third-years who were barreling toward the main staircase. Getting her balance again, she looked around and beheld a scene of utter bedlam, with girls running back and forth, carrying heaps of things, stuffing contraband sweets into half-full rucksacks, and shrieking and quarreling and chattering at the tops of their lungs. On the landing that led to the first-year dormitories, she saw Fenella and Griselda hanging over the railing and grinning, clearly enjoying the pandemonium as much as if it were a Christmas pantomime.

Constance felt pure, righteous fury surge up like molten lava in her chest. She gave in to it gladly. After the upsetting and confusing events of the last hour, here at last was something familiar that she knew how to handle. She took a deep breath and shouted "QUIET," and in less than half an instant, everything came to a screeching halt.

"Do I dare," she said into the silence, "to ask what is going on here?"

A tentative hand went up at the back of the hall. "Please, Miss Hardbroom, Miss Bat said we were going on a trip and we should be ready to go in an hour."

"I'm sure she did," Constance said. "I'm equally sure she did _not_ tell you to do it by stampeding about like a herd of wild animals and making the most appalling racket I have heard in my life." She fixed the nearest group of girls with a gimlet eye. "Did she?"

"No, Miss Hardbroom."

"Well then, I suggest you go _in silence_ and finish doing what you have been told to do. Meanwhile, I shall be visiting each floor in turn, just in case anyone forgets their instructions."

"Yes, Miss Hardbroom." Looking like scolded puppies, all the girls trudged up the stairs and went about their work with a tenth of the noise and three times the efficiency, while Constance stalked up and down the corridors and prodded them along when they seemed to be flagging. She was making a sweep along the second-years' floor when someone spoke up behind her.

"Miss Hardbroom?"

It was Mildred Hubble, of course. Who else would have dared to interrupt under these circumstances? Constance mentally counted to three before turning round.

"What is it, Mildred?"

"I was wondering...is something the matter? Why are we going away so suddenly? We only just went to the riverside last month, and I know we were going to learn freezing potions today-I did the reading last night and everything-and it just seems odd." Mildred's freckled face was as soft and innocent as ever in its frame of untidy dark plaits, but Constance was unsettled by the sharp, almost adult expression in the girl's eyes. Mildred had no right to know so much, or to ask questions in that forthright way, as if she were entitled to answers.

"Nothing is the matter, Mildred. Miss Cackle has decided on the spur of the moment that you are all to have this trip as a treat, and unless you want to spend the next two days in an empty classroom writing out 'I must appreciate the opportunities I am given,' you had better hop to it and finish packing." She turned Mildred round by the shoulders and gave her a little push in the right direction. "And remember to put in your warmest things. It will be cold at night, and you'll find it even harder than usual to cast spells properly if half your fingers have fallen off from frostbite, won't you?"

"Yes, Miss Hardbroom." Mildred dragged her feet in their perpetually unlaced boots toward her room. When she got there, she turned and looked back as if she wanted to say something more, but a scowl from Constance sent her scurrying inside with the words unspoken. As soon as Mildred's door had closed, Constance resumed patrolling, her thoughts already turning back to the clearing in the woods and the silent body lying there, waiting to yield up its story.

 _We can't get these girls out of here quickly enough_ , she thought, starting down the stairs to look in on the first-years.

In the end, it took three hours of frantic work, rather than one, to get all sixty girls packed, loaded into a hastily hired coach, and on their way to commune with nature. There were varying degrees of excitement about the prospect of spending two days and nights in the company of birds, badgers and Miss Bat, but all of them (except perhaps Mildred, whose anxious face Constance could see pressed up against the window as the coach pulled away) were over the moon about the sudden reprieve from lessons. In the whirlwind of their departure, they left behind fifty-nine black cats, one grey striped tabby, piles of half-finished homework, a mess of crumpled school uniforms, and three worried teachers, who were already on their way into the abandoned castle for a conference before the coach was out of sight.

"Headmistress, shouldn't we begin at once? We've already lost so much time." Constance had followed Miss Cackle into her office, but refused to sit.

"It _is_ almost noon," Miss Drill pointed out, coming in behind her.

"I know," said Miss Cackle, "and none of us has eaten anything since last night, if not before." She gazed meaningfully at Constance, who squirmed. "If we're starving and exhausted, we'll make mistakes. We need to sit down, take a little nourishment and think things through before we go running off in all directions."

"Headmistress!" Constance said sharply. "I don't mean to harp on the matter, but there is a dead woman lying just the other side of the lawn from us, and the clock is already ticking until those girls come back. This is not the time for cheesecake."

"Certainly not," said Miss Cackle. "It's the time for a proper meal." She craned her neck to look past Constance. "Thank you, Mrs Tapioca, you can bring it in now."

"What?" Constance whirled around and found the cook standing there with a tray in her hands and an apologetic smile on her round, friendly face. "Headmistress, no. I don't want food. I'll be sick. Just let me go to the-"

Miss Cackle shot her a warning glance. "Put it down just there, Mrs Tapioca. Very good. You may take the rest of the day off; we'll shift for ourselves this evening. Imogen, Constance, sit down. I promise we will talk while we eat."

Fuming, Constance perched at the very edge of her usual chair and waited as Mrs Tapioca left the room. Miss Cackle lifted the cover from the tray in a cloud of steam, slid a plate in front of each of them, and handed round knives and forks.

"At least a little, Constance," she said. "Do it for me."

Constance sawed off a sliver of chicken, put it in her mouth and chewed savagely, and Miss Cackle nodded in approval. "Well done. Now, how to begin finding out what has happened? We have both magical and mundane means at our disposal. Imogen, perhaps you should go down into the village and ask whether anyone saw our poor victim passing through last night. You might say you were expecting a visit from a cousin or a friend who hasn't come yet, and were worried about her."

"Of course, Miss Cackle."

"And Constance-" Miss Cackle turned back to Constance just in time to see her nearly choke on a chunk of potato as she tried to force it down. "What do you recommend in your own area of expertise? A tracking spell, perhaps?"

"That was my first thought, but I've remembered something else we might try as well." Constance cut the rest of her chicken into tiny bits and pushed them around on the plate. "I need to consult a book first, though, to make certain I have the words of the spell correct. May I have permission to open the forbidden shelf in the library, Headmistress?"

Miss Cackle's eyebrows shot up in surprise, but she nodded. "I trust your judgment in these matters, Constance. If you feel it is necessary-"

"I do."

"Then you may go as soon as you have finished eating."

"I'd finished before I even started." With immense relief, Constance laid her knife and fork down and vanished.

In the girls' absence, the library was still and sleepy, the crumbling old books drowsing away the hours on their shelves until someone needed them again. Constance strode past them all to the very farthest corner and stood facing what appeared to be a blank stone wall, sealed magically against the damp. Out of habit, she glanced around to make certain no one was watching, and then raising her hands, murmured the words of a secret spell and watched as the forbidden shelf shimmered and appeared. She ran a finger along the spines, looking for a title she hadn't seen in years, and stopped on a heavy, black-bound volume that she slid out and propped against the shelf. One by one, she turned the leaves over until she found the page she wanted. It was yellowed and faded with age, and in its margin was a finely drawn pen-and-ink illustration of a body laid out for burial, coins on the eyes and jaw bound up in the old-fashioned way. Across the top ran a simple five-word title:

**TO MAKE THE DEAD SPEAK**


	5. Chapter 5

"It's dark magic," Miss Cackle said. "A form of necromancy."

"I know," Constance said. They were back in the clearing, having sent Miss Drill off by bicycle to do her questioning in the village. Outside the Sempiternum Shield, the morning's frigid blue sky had gone leaden grey, with low-hanging clouds that threatened snow. Inside, Constance had, with some difficulty, hollowed out a space where she and the Headmistress could perform additional magic without upsetting the shield spell or setting off the Foster's Effect.

"Have you actually performed it before?"

Constance shook her head. "But I've seen it done, once. With Mistress Broomhead as your tutor, you got experience of everything, whether you wanted it or not."

"Dreadful woman," Miss Cackle muttered. Constance made a noncommittal noise, not wishing to provoke an enquiry about other things Mistress Broomhead had forced her to watch and do during her education. Sometimes she felt a wild, almost uncontrollable urge to tell the Headmistress all she had endured under the old hag's iron reign, but this wasn't the moment. Perhaps it never would be.

"Yes, well, the point is that I know I can do it without much risk," she said. "It isn't at all the same thing as calling up spirits. More like-like reading a letter someone wrote before they died, only in this case she hadn't time to write it."

"Are you absolutely certain, Constance?" Miss Cackle's face was grave as a statue's. "Because if you have even the slightest doubt, I don't want you to do it. In fact, I forbid you to. I'll contact the High Council today and we will take our chances. I would sooner lose the school altogether than see any harm come to you."

"I'm certain," Constance said. Of course she would never allow the Headmistress to sacrifice the school, would gladly lay down her own life to protect it if need be, but she couldn't help feeling a warm glow at the words. Miss Cackle was too soft at times, too forgiving with the girls and too fond of her own little self-indulgences, but it was all part and parcel of a kindly nature, and there was something comforting about being included in her circle of affection. It had the effect, unintended by the Headmistress herself, of making Constance even more determined to do the spell successfully, no matter what.

"Very well then," said Miss Cackle, unaware that she had sealed the decision before even saying the words. "I'll help you, of course." She was holding the book Constance had taken from the library, one finger tucked between the leaves to mark their place, and now she opened it again and studied the page in question.

"We'll need a circle," she said. "Not for protection, but to focus the magic. Lucky for us everything hasn't frozen yet."

Working together, they scraped away the leaves and debris in a line around the dead woman, all the way down to the dark earth, taking care to join the ends on the other side of the oak tree's trunk. When it was complete, the circle was smaller and more irregular than the neatly drawn chalk markings they had both been taught to make in their own school days, but enough to suit their purposes. Constance picked up the hem of her skirt and stepped into it, lifting her feet high so as not to disturb the line, and then Miss Cackle followed in the same manner and propped the open book against the oak's roots. They had to stand so close to the body that the toes of their shoes touched it, which made both of them uneasy, but couldn't be helped.

 _Why do people always say the dead look as if they're sleeping?_ Constance wondered, looking down into the lifeless face. _It isn't true._ The woman's eyes were mostly closed, but not entirely, and the bottom edges of her irises were just visible beneath the lowered lids, making it difficult to tell what colour they had been in life. The expression on her face was neither peaceful nor agitated, but neutral, as if she had died unexpectedly while thinking of nothing in particular.

"It's a shame to disturb her," Miss Cackle said.

"I don't want to do it either, Headmistress, but we must. It isn't only for ourselves, it's for her as well. If she was murdered, she's entitled to justice, and if she wasn't, she still deserves a name and a proper resting place." Constance glanced sideways at her employer. "And the wizards will do the same thing, if not even worse. You know that."

"I know," said Miss Cackle wearily.

"Have you got the twig?"

Miss Cackle held it up, glossy and heavy with needle-like evergreen leaves.

"Put one of the berries in her mouth," Constance instructed, and Miss Cackle obeyed, grimacing.

"Now strip the leaves and give the twig to me." Miss Cackle handed it over, and Constance conjured a small blue flame and set it alight, moving it in the prescribed pattern above the body.

"Remember not to breathe the smoke," said Miss Cackle, worried.

"I'm not." Constance dropped the still-smouldering twig into the cleared trench of the circle, where she could grind it out completely later. "Now the spell. It's a tonal one, so it must be pronounced exactly right. Tell me when to begin."

"Now," said Miss Cackle, and Constance read through the spell smoothly, focusing on each syllable. She did not want to remember the last time she had heard these words spoken aloud, and yet in an instant she was back there again-the dark room, the body on the table, Mistress Broomhead's cold, hard hand gripping her wrist until she wanted to scream. But she hadn't screamed then, and she didn't scream now, not even when she reached the last word of the incantation and the dead woman's eyes slid wide open: dark blue, unfocused, and utterly empty.

Miss Cackle, who had never witnessed the spell before, could not hold back a small, shocked noise, but she was too seasoned a witch to interrupt the magic any further than that. She looked at Constance for confirmation that this was what was meant to happen, and Constance nodded.

"We won't have long, only a minute or two at most, and we'll need to get closer. It isn't easy to speak without breath in your lungs." She crouched, being careful to stay inside the circle, and Miss Cackle crouched beside her.

"You first, Headmistress. Make the questions very direct and specific. She hasn't the ability to understand nuances, or anything really. We're speaking to a remnant-an echo-not a whole person. Whatever made her who she was is gone."

Miss Cackle took a steadying breath before beginning. "What is your name?"

The woman's pale lips moved, but nothing intelligible came out.

"What is your name?"

Nothing.

"Try something else," Constance urged her.

"What happened to you?" Miss Cackle leant toward the woman's body as if encouraging her.

"Cold." It was a hoarse, barely audible whisper from the dead mouth, but they both heard.

"Yes, it was cold." Miss Cackle turned to Constance. "Perhaps we're right and she simply died of exposure."

"Perhaps," said Constance. She addressed the woman. "Did the cold kill you?"

"No," came the whispery voice again. "Hurt."

"Someone hurt you?"

"Man."

"A man hurt you?"

"Yes-ss." The voice faltered.

"She's beginning to fade already," Constance said urgently. "We've got to hurry." To the woman, she said, "Who was the man?"

"Dark man," whispered the dead woman. Her eyelids had begun to slip closed again. "Behind me. A light. The spell..."

With a tiny hiss of a sigh, the words tapered off, and she was gone.


	6. Chapter 6

The clouds' prediction of snow had not been wrong. By the time Miss Drill returned, wheeling her bicycle across the courtyard with her hair mussed and her cheeks pink from the cold, the first few flurries had begun to whirl down from the sky. They stuck and accumulated, and when the early twilight came, a heavier snow was already beginning to powder the rooftops and pile up on the windowsills. The three women who now constituted the castle's entire living population retreated to Miss Cackle's personal sitting room, where the Headmistress, still shaken from the experience in the wood, built up the fire and laid out biscuits and sandwiches.

Miss Drill had listened to the weather forecast on her small portable radio during her ride back, and reported that the girls were far enough south on their trip to miss the worst of it, which cheered Miss Cackle somewhat. The two of them drank tea and talked over what Miss Drill had learnt in the village, which was mainly nothing: a few people thought they might have seen someone matching the victim's description, but no one had spoken to her or had any idea who she was. Miss Drill fretted over not having been able to find out more; Miss Cackle soothed her and said she had done her best. Both of them discussed at length the sparse information that the victim herself had given them, and debated over who the "dark man" might be.

Constance barely noticed any of it. Her mind was fixed on the body in the wood. She had rebuilt her shield from the inside out, so neither snow nor animals could penetrate it, but she was troubled by the idea of the woman lying alone in the dark for the second night in a row. Miss Cackle put a sandwich in front of her, and to avoid a struggle she ate it without tasting a bite, only realising at the very end that it was cucumber, which she hated. She wanted to _do_ something, not to sit here and listen to her colleagues talk uselessly on and on. The drone of their voices and the heat of the fire were making her drowsy, or maybe it was the effect of not having slept in nearly forty-eight hours. She thought longingly of the Wide-Awake potion upstairs in her room, but she'd had too much of it already today. You couldn't use it forever; sooner or later it caught up with you and you had to sleep, as she'd learnt the hard way long ago. The flames wavered back and forth in the fireplace; the voices rose and fell along with them like a long, dull, endless song. She was in the wood; she was bending so close to the dead woman that she could have felt her breath if there was any to feel; and then the empty eyes opened and the bloodless lips whispered her name-

"Constance!"

With a gasp, she sat up straight to find both Miss Cackle and Miss Drill watching her. Automatically, she searched their faces for signs of pity or amusement, but saw only concern.

"Perhaps you should go and lie down for a bit," Miss Cackle suggested.

"Certainly not," Constance said stiffly. "I'm quite all right."

"Well, I'm shattered," Miss Drill said, yawning. "Miss Cackle, would you mind if I took an hour or two? Just come and wake me if anything new should happen."

"Not at all," Miss Cackle said, and Miss Drill got up, stretched each sleek, athletic limb in turn, and headed for the door.

"You really ought to get some shut-eye as well, Miss Hardbroom," she said. "I imagine we're in for a long day tomorrow."

"I can manage, thank you." Constance aimed a chilly stare at her, and with a shrug, Miss Drill departed.

"She's right, you know," Miss Cackle said when she had gone. "You push yourself too hard, Constance."

"If I don't, who will?" Constance rubbed the back of her neck, which had begun to ache, no doubt from dozing off in some ridiculous position. Hoping to ease it a bit, she started pulling out hairpins, then undid coils and plaits until the whole thick, heavy mass was free. She pushed her fingers through it, loosening it at the roots, and sighed as the familiar tingle ran through her body from head to feet. All at once, she noticed the Headmistress watching her, and feeling exposed, got up and went to look out the window at the silently drifting snow.

"Imogen says it should last until morning, if not longer," Miss Cackle said behind her.

"And he's out there somewhere in it, isn't he?" Constance said. "The dark man, whoever he is."

"Maybe," said Miss Cackle. "Or maybe he's far away by now. Or maybe he isn't a real person, only something she hallucinated while she was dying, like the light. Maybe the spell she spoke of was one of her own. We simply don't know."

"She's all on her own there." Constance said in a dreamy, musing voice. She put up a hand and touched her own distorted reflection in the black glass. Her face looked pallid and drawn, her hair falling all around it like a shroud. "No one knows where she is, and no one has come looking for her. I suppose she hasn't any family."

"I suppose not," Miss Cackle said. "Poor thing."

"It could have been me." Constance turned from the window abruptly. "If I had been killed somewhere far away like that, no one would know it either. I would lie there under the trees, and the leaves would fall on me, and the snow and the wind and the wild creatures would do their work until I was nothing but bones."

"Good heavens, Constance!" Miss Cackle took a step toward her deputy. "That isn't true at all. Everyone at the school would know you were missing and search for you."

Constance let out a small, scornful laugh. "You might, Headmistress, but Miss Drill and Miss Bat would be glad to see the back of me, and the girls would think Christmas had come early if I disappeared."

"Constance, you mustn't say such things. The girls are only children and they haven't the maturity yet to appreciate all you do for them, but they certainly don't want you to disappear, and neither do Imogen and Davina."

"Perhaps," Constance said. The mantelpiece clock chimed softly, and she glanced over at it, realising with a start that she had been asleep in her chair longer than she thought. "Headmistress, it's eight already. How are we to use the rest of the evening? Perhaps scrying, or that tracking spell we discussed earlier? We still haven't much to go on, and-"

"Ah," said Miss Cackle. "That's something that Imogen and I were discussing."

"And?"

"Well..." Miss Cackle cleared her throat. "We thought perhaps we might notify the High Council after all, in the morning, and tell them what little we've managed to discover. If the 'dark man' is real, and is a wizard or some sort of magic user, then that would be within their purview, and would take the suspicion off us and the school."

"What? You can't be serious, Headmistress! To give up just like that, when we've barely begun, and turn it over to those-those horrid old men?" Constance closed the distance between herself and Miss Cackle in two long strides and stood staring down at her in disbelief. "We can do more, I know we can. The answers are there, we just need to look harder for them."

"Constance, please. I know you agreed with Imogen, but even she is willing to go along with this."

"Of course she's willing to go along with it! What does she know about wizards and their ways, aside from what we've told her? She was ready to call in the authorities first thing anyway; it was only the idea of playing at being a detective that appealed to her."

"It certainly was not," said Miss Cackle. "She cares about the school as much as you or I do. Oh, do stop looming over me that way, Constance. Come, let's sit down again."

"I don't want to sit down," said Constance. She heard an hysterical note rising in her own voice, but felt helpless to stop it. Why did no one ever _understand_?

Miss Cackle rubbed both hands through her wiry grey hair, leaving it in a wild tangle and knocking her spectacles askew from their place on top of her head. "All right, you don't have to sit down, but you do have to listen. I'm not completely convinced yet of which course of action to take, only leaning in one direction over the other. I'd like us both to sleep on it, at least for a bit, and discuss the topic again later, with clear minds. Can you do that for me?" She paused, and upon receiving no response, prodded again. "Constance? Can you?"

Constance felt the sting of frustrated tears, but forced them away and made her face as blank as possible. "Yes, Headmistress."

"That's good." Miss Cackle gave her an encouraging smile. "Go on, now. We'll both feel much better after a bit of rest."

Dismissed against her will, Constance took the long way up the stairs as a form of protest, finding bits and pieces of the girls' mess everywhere she looked, but feeling too weary to do anything about them. Halfway to her destination, she passed her laboratory, where the day had started at least a hundred years ago, or so it seemed. She glanced through the window to check that Griselda had cleared away the experimental potion as she had been told, and made a mental note to give Griselda a word of praise when she returned; the girl had earned it.

At last she reached her own room, where she fed a very hungry and impatient cat and then paced about unhappily, not certain how she felt or what she meant to do. The Headmistress had told her to rest, and in general Constance did as the Headmistress ordered, but the pull to take some sort of action was so strong she could hardly bear it. At the same time, her own weak body was siding with the Headmistress. It wanted to sleep, and soon enough it would win, and by the time she woke up in the morning a decision might already have been taken without her, just as the discussion between Miss Cackle and Miss Drill had happened without her.

She picked up the green glass bottle of Wide-Awake potion from her bedside table and turned it over in her hands, thinking. The Headmistress had not actually said she must sleep right _now_ , had she? No, she hadn't. And the Headmistress had not ordered her to stay in the castle, either. Therefore she could go out and come back again without disobeying, could she not? Yes.

Her mind made up, she pulled the cork from the bottle and drank off a single swallow-two would have been better, but she could already feel the shaking limbs and metallic taste in the mouth that came from overuse. From the wardrobe, she took her heavy hooded cloak ( _take your warmest things, it will be cold at night_ , she had said to Mildred, but Mildred was far away and she was the one facing the real cold) and fastened it round her neck. Thus prepared, she looked round her room, taking in her books, her few but treasured ornaments, the cat leisurely washing its face, and drew a deep breath. It was tempting to stay, but this was her home, her only home, and she had no choice but to defend it.

"I'm sorry, Headmistress, but I _must_ ," she said, and vanished into the snowy dark.


	7. Chapter 7

Constance had expected it to be dark in the wood, but she had not anticipated the total blackness that greeted her when she manifested just outside the Sempiternum Shield, ankle-deep in snow and pressed up against the rough trunk of a tree. The cold bit into her at once, all the way to the core, and she pulled her cloak closer around her throat and conjured a globe of heat in her cupped hands. It took a moment to get started, but after a few flickers it came to life, shining the intense yellow of a miniature sun. She blew on it gently and watched it float up and hover beside her at shoulder height. In its glow, her shadow streamed off to the right, impossibly long and thin, like a woman made of sticks and bones. She had never been frightened of the dark, but she was glad to have the light as well as the warmth. It helped a little with the feeling that something might come up from behind at any moment and catch hold of her.

The snow was falling fast and thick, pattering down on the hood of her cloak and catching in her eyelashes, and she shielded her face with one hand to survey her surroundings. She had decided to come so abruptly that she had not really thought of what she would do when she arrived, but now that she was here, several possibilities occurred to her. First, though, she would check on their victim and make certain everything was as they had left it. Turning to the shield, she pressed both hands flat against its outer edge and leant hard against it to push her way through, leaving the globe bobbing outside as it waited for her return.

Inside the perimeter, the ground was still snow-free, the dry leaves still hung in midair, the magic circle that she and the Headmistress had scraped in the earth still smelt of freshly turned soil. The burnt outline of the dead woman's body still showed up dark and clear - but the body itself was gone.

Constance felt the shock of it like a hard blow to the stomach. This was her spell; anyone who crossed its boundaries without her permission should have been suspended along with everything else. The woman certainly hadn't got up and walked away on her own, so what had happened? She looked around wildly, but found no obvious answer. The branch she had used as a staff earlier in the day was near her feet, and snatching it up, she backed through the barrier again and pointed it skyward, ready to bring the whole shield down. Just in time, she remembered that there might still be evidence to gather, and that the snow would spoil it almost at once, and threw the branch aside with a trembling hand instead.

What was she to do? She took a few uncertain steps, the soles of her boots crunching in the snow. She had no illusions about the extent of her abilities; she knew that she was a far more powerful witch than any of her colleagues, and therefore better equipped to handle almost anything that arose. But her whole life had been spent first following rules and then enforcing them, and in this completely unexpected situation, she felt lost with nothing to guide her. She should tell the Headmistress, but that would only seal the Headmistress' decision to hand it all over to the wizards as soon as morning arrived. There seemed to be no single right answer, and right answers and correct behaviour were the foundation of Constance's very being. The lack of certainty tormented her.

Perhaps, she thought, she could at least search around the immediate area first, in case the body had only been moved somehow. Comforted by that thought, she turned to begin, and froze as she saw a dark shape standing only a little distance away.

 _Dark man_ , whispered the dead woman's voice in her memory. Somewhere deep inside, she felt the omnipresent force of her magic stir and begin to gather itself together, as if knowing it was about to be needed. It itched and tingled just below the surface of her skin, ready to be unleashed - or to expend itself in one last dying blaze of glory.

Drawing herself up to her full height, Constance summoned every bit of authority she had ever held in her life and faced the enemy.

"Who are you?" she demanded. It was her very fiercest voice, the one that made young girls quail and weep, but it had no effect at all on the shape. She raised her hands with fingers poised in the spell-casting position and repeated herself.

"I _said_ , who are you? Answer me this instant!"

As she spoke, she saw the shape make a subtle movement and knew that it signalled some sort of attack. In a flash, she vanished and reappeared behind a nearby tree, and leaning out around the trunk, fired a blast of immobilising magic at her opponent, only to see it fizzle and melt away before it reached its target. Slowly, inexorably, the shape began to walk toward her inadequate shelter, and she let loose with another barrage that had the same non-effect on its grim march. It was close enough now for her to see that it was, indeed, the shape of a man ( _a dark man_ ) but the face was too shadowed for her to tell whether it was a man's face or a monster's, or no face at all.

In desperation, Constance hurled a final spell and prepared to vanish again, meaning to get farther away this time and formulate a better plan. But before she could begin, the whole world was suddenly filled with a cold blue light, and everything stopped.

At the same moment, Miss Cackle woke in her bedroom at the castle with a feeling of terrible wrongness, as if she had lost something very important to her, or forgot to do some urgent chore. The room was frigid; she had closed the wooden shutters on her window when she retired for the night, but snow had crept stealthily in through the cracks and piled up on the inner sill. She sat up in bed and regarded it with deep unease for a moment, as if it were a human intruder, and then she pushed off the thick patchwork quilt - made by her granny sixty years ago, with small Amelia sitting at her side and helping to snip the threads - and got up altogether. She started to shove her feet into her slippers, thought better of it, reached for her heavy boots instead, and threw a cloak on over her sleeping attire before hurrying down the corridor.

"Constance?" She knocked briskly on Miss Hardbroom's door, but got no response. "Constance, are you awake?"

"What's the matter, Miss Cackle?" Miss Drill poked her head out of her own door, looking groggy and rumpled. "Has something happened?"

"Have you seen Miss Hardbroom?"

"No, not since I left you both downstairs." Miss Drill emerged fully and came to join her. "But she wanders around the castle at night, or does things in her laboratory. I've bumped into her lots of times. She might be anywhere."

"I know," said Miss Cackle, "but this time I sent her to bed, and I'm certain that she went." She cast a swift spell, and when she spoke, her voice echoed magically through every corner of the castle, bouncing back at them from walls and floors and magnifying itself until even the dead could have heard it.

"CONSTANCE, WHERE ARE YOU? REPORT TO ME AT ONCE."

There was no answer. The two women looked at each other with varied expressions - confusion on Miss Drill's part, worry on Miss Cackle's.

"Well, she can't have left the castle, can she?" Miss Drill said. "It's pitch black and snowing like mad. She isn't stupid."

"No, but she is stubborn," said Miss Cackle. "I'm afraid I know where she's gone. Get your coat, Imogen."

Not wishing to waste time or energy on walking, Miss Cackle used another spell to transport them both to the wood. Like Constance shortly before them, they were both assaulted by a sudden, brutal slap of cold that left them breathless, and it took them a moment to get their bearings, especially Miss Drill, who was not used to this sort of travel. She pressed her gloved hands to her cheeks, wishing she had grabbed a scarf as well in her hurry, and as she looked around, her eye fell on a strange glowing orb ahead of them, floating half a metre or so off the ground. It was a sickly yellowish-white, flickering and sputtering as if its light were about to go out, and just beneath it, she saw something that looked horribly like yet another body.

"Look over there." Miss Drill clutched at Miss Cackle's arm and pointed. Miss Cackle looked, and for the first time in all her years at the Academy, Miss Drill heard her employer use a real, crude, Anglo-Saxon swear word. Then they both ran, floundering and stumbling in the snow, and went down on their knees beside their fallen colleague.

Constance was on her back, splayed out as if she'd been thrown there by a great force. Her lips were blue and her pale skin looked frozen in the dying light of the heat globe, which had obediently stayed close to its creator throughout everything. Snow was caught in the folds of her black cloak and the long, loose mass of her hair. Miss Drill leant forward and felt her throat with two fingers for a pulse.

"Is she...?"

"She's alive," Miss Drill said, and Miss Cackle caught her breath on a sob. "But she's so cold, Headmistress. We have to get her inside the castle. Can you do a spell for all three of us?"

Miss Cackle nodded. "It'll be easier if we're all touching. Help me hold her up." With infinite care, they lifted Constance halfway out of the depression her body had made in the snow, and propped her in a sitting position between them. The movement roused her a bit, and she stirred and mumbled something that neither of them could quite make out.

"What is it, Constance?" Miss Cackle brushed ice away from Constance's face with the corner of one sleeve. "Can you understand her, Imogen?"

Miss Drill turned her head and put her ear right up against Constance's mouth, and her green eyes went wide with shock.

"She says she's seen the dark man."


	8. Chapter 8

Constance woke up with the glorious empty feeling that sometimes came over her in the morning, when all the work and responsibility of the day ahead had not descended upon her yet, and she barely knew her own name or who she was. She lay there for a moment staring at the wall, still half asleep and feeling puzzled about the unfamiliar pattern of bumps and ripples in the plaster, and then everything came back to her in a rush and she sat up with a gasp.

The wall didn't look like her bedroom wall because she wasn't in her bedroom. She was in the Headmistress' bedroom, where she had been only once before, and tucked up in the Headmistress' bed, where she had never been at all. Lifting the quilt that covered her, she discovered that she was wearing a stripy pink flannel nightgown that was both too short and too wide for her, and which no doubt also belonged to Miss Cackle. A brief vision of Miss Cackle and Miss Drill stripping her naked and bundling her into this garment flashed across her mind's eye, followed by a burning flush of shame that suffused her entire body. She started to fling the quilt away, but just then Miss Drill herself came in, carrying a steaming cup, and she pulled it back up to her neck instead, for protection.

"Oh good, you're awake." Miss Drill put the cup down on a table, next to a precarious stack of old newspapers - the Headmistress was no better at keeping a tidy bedroom than a tidy office - and reached out to feel Constance's forehead as if she were a nurse. Before her hand could make contact, Constance drew away from the touch, offended.

"Well, you're obviously back to your same old self," said Miss Drill, with a wry twist to her pretty mouth. "How are you feeling? Physically, I mean."

Constance took a swift mental inventory of all her parts. There was a faint, prickly pins-and-needles sensation in her hands and feet, and her chest ached every time she drew a deep breath, but she had felt worse. After Mistress Broomhead had stood you in the middle of the college's courtyard and ordered your fellow students to pummel you with spells until you fell down or gave up (Constance, who even at eighteen had not been one to give up, had chosen the former), your perspective on pain tended to change.

"Well enough, I suppose," she said. "How did I come to be here?"

"Well, when we couldn't find you in the castle, Miss Cackle thought you must have gone back out to the wood," Miss Drill said. "Speaking of Miss Cackle, she wanted you to drink this as soon as you woke up. Oh, let go of the quilt, I've already seen your ridiculous nightie. Here." Constance sank back against the pillows, and Miss Drill picked up the cup and handed it to her.

"Anyway," she went on, "we went to look for you, and it was frightful out there, I can tell you. The only reason we found you as quickly as we did was because of the light from that globe spell. It most likely was what kept you from freezing solid as well, so thank goodness for that. Really, Miss Hardbroom, I don't know what you were thinking. You may be a witch, but you aren't immortal."

"I know that, _Imogen_ ," Constance said crossly. She lifted the cup to her lips to take a sip, then sniffed it and pulled a face. "What's in this? It smells of anise and cat sick."

"No idea," Miss Drill said. "Miss Cackle said it was her great-granny's special brew, and it would do you the world of good."

"I'm sure," Constance said. She set the cup down on the bedside table and pushed it decisively out of reach. "I've had enough of being fussed over, Miss Drill. I need to get out of this bed and back into my proper clothes, and then I need to see the Headmistress at once. I have something important to tell her."

"What, that the body's gone? We know. You wouldn't stop telling us, before. You were half out of your head and raving about it. We had to hold you down so you wouldn't hurt yourself trying to get away and back there to show us."

"No, not that - well, yes, but not only that. It was that thing, that creature she called the dark man. Did I mention him as well in my lunatic ravings?"

"Only to say that you had seen him," Miss Drill said. "'He's here, the dark man is here.' You said it over and over when we first found you. It scared us both rigid, as if we weren't already terrified enough that you were going to die. You've no idea what you looked like, there in the snow."

"Well, I'm quite all right now, so let me up." Deciding there was no time for embarrassment, Constance swung her legs over the edge of the bed, rose to her feet, and immediately went into a coughing fit that left her feeling giddy and horrible all over, with ominous black and red shapes swimming in front of her eyes. Miss Drill looped an arm round her waist to support her, and for once all she could do was feel grateful that Miss Drill was so strong. It seemed all those hours spent lifting weights and inflating volleyballs had actually had some benefit.

"I'm fine," she insisted when the spasm had passed and she could breathe again. "I expect it was just the shock of standing up. I'll go to my room and...oh." Another wave of dizziness swept over her, and she closed her eyes.

"Not on your own, you won't," said Miss Drill. "I'll take you there, and then I'll fetch Miss Cackle for you. I don't think you're quite ready to go storming about the castle the way you usually do."

"I do not _storm about_ ," said Constance. It came out sounding much weaker and more petulant than she had intended to, and she relented. "Very well. But hurry." She paused, and then added an awkward "Please, Miss Drill. We really haven't much time."

Miss Drill gave her a long, searching look, as if wondering whether all this urgency were really necessary. Then she said, simply, "Come along then," and began helping her toward the door.


	9. Chapter 9

According to the clock, it was just before dawn, but the sky still showed no signs of lightening when the three women reconvened in Constance's room half an hour later. In the interim, Constance had managed to dress herself in fresh clothes and brush the tangles out of her hair, though not to pin it up in its customary coil. She had also self-administered a large dose of one of her own potions, which she was sure would be more efficacious for what ailed her than Great-Granny Cackle's noxious recipe. It had certainly smelt better, at any rate.

These preparations had taken all her strength, at least for the moment, and so when Miss Drill arrived with Miss Cackle in tow, she waved a hand to open the door for them without getting up. Miss Cackle came at once to feel her forehead, which Constance suffered with slightly better grace than when Miss Drill had attempted the same imposition.

"Really, Headmistress. I'm not a child with measles," she protested. In truth, the Headmistress' warm, dry old hand was rather soothing, as was the scent of shortbread biscuits and milky tea that seemed to live permanently in the folds of all her cardigans, but Constance was not about to admit it.

"No," said Miss Cackle. She sat down on the leather Chesterfield opposite Constance's chair and clasped her hands on her black-clad knees. "Unless I'm very much mistaken, you're a witch who has suffered a magical attack. Imogen says you have something to tell me about the person who did it."

"It isn't a person," said Constance. The image of that dark, relentlessly trudging figure came back to her, and she felt the remembered chill of the snow strike through her body as if she were facing it again. "I thought it was at first. It's shaped like one, more or less, but it's a creature, a _thing_. Headmistress…I think it's come from the other world."

Miss Cackle sucked in a sharp breath and made a swift sign against evil. "Are you sure? It's been so many years."

Constance nodded. "When it attacked me, there was a light, just as the woman in the wood said—a blue light that seemed to be everywhere all at once—and I saw the opening, and through it to the other side. It was only for a moment, but that was enough."

"What happened after that?"

"I lost consciousness." Constance said this as if it had been a personal failure on her part, which she rather felt it had been. "I can't remember anything else until I woke up in the castle not long ago. I might as well have been dead."

"If it had caught you off guard, like our poor victim, you could have been," said Miss Cackle gravely. "I have no doubt that your personal magic protected you, even if you weren't able to use it against the creature itself."

Constance stared down at her hands in her lap, feeling the sting of her defeat. "I tried, Headmistress, truly I did. Perhaps the spells we use for defence simply don't work on things from the other world."

"Hang on a minute." Miss Drill had been leaning against the wall, trying to follow the conversation as if it were a tennis match, but now she came and sat beside Miss Cackle on the sofa. "The Otherworld? You mean like f—"

"No!" Constance turned on her. "Not at all like that. It isn't an Otherworld, capital O, and it certainly isn't some sort of faerieland where you'll find Oberon and Titania speaking in verse to each other. It's just … another place."

"A dark place," Miss Cackle said, "where dark things live. Though perhaps to them it's our world that looks monstrous. Who can say?"

Miss Drill frowned. "All right, so it's another world that's nothing to do with faeries. The question is, where is it and how did something from it come here?"

"No one really knows where it is," Constance said. "It's everywhere and nowhere, on top of our world and behind it and beside it."

"Another dimension," Miss Drill suggested, and Constance rolled her eyes at the word, but made a gesture of assent.

"I suppose you could call it that, though I'd prefer you didn't. We aren't in one of Ruby Cherrytree's ridiculous science-fiction stories, you know." She paused for a moment, thinking she felt another of those deadly coughing fits coming on, but the burning in her chest subsided on its own, and she continued.

"As to how something could come here, sometimes a weak place develops and a doorway of sorts opens up between the two worlds. It doesn't happen often, perhaps once in fifty or a hundred years. The last one anyone knows of appeared in Paris in the early nineteenth century, but the place it opened onto in the other world was at the bottom of a lake, so nothing came through but a few strange fish that died at once. Not much of a crisis."

"Bad news for the man who discovered it, though," Miss Cackle said. "When he picked up the dead fish to dispose of them, it turned out they were covered in slime that contained a poison no one had ever seen before or since. On the bright side, his suffering only lasted ten seconds or so."

Horror crept over Miss Drill's face as she absorbed what that meant. Constance leant forward in her chair to drive the message home.

"That's what the other world is like, Miss Drill. Kill or be killed. Every scrap of information that witches and wizards have ever gained about it says so."

"But surely the dark man, or whatever he is, can't have thought a lone woman was any threat to him," said Miss Drill. "Why would he have killed her and tried to kill you? And what about the body? Why would he come back and take it?"

Constance looked at the Headmistress, who gave a small, slow nod as if to say _go on_.

"Well," Constance said, "we can't be certain, of course, but…probably to eat."

"My God," Miss Drill said faintly. Her complexion, usually glowing with rosy health even in the dead of winter, had gone a sickly greenish-white. "But then everyone is in danger for miles around. Not only from him—it—whatever—but from anything else that might come through."

"Now, Miss Drill, you are beginning to understand," Constance said.

Miss Drill cast a desperate glance at Miss Cackle. "Headmistress, I know you were composing a message to the wizards to come and help us…"

"I was," said Miss Cackle, "but I'm afraid there's no time to wait for them now."

"But then what can we do?"

"Find the dark creature, send it back through the door, and close the door behind it," Constance said. It was a comfort beyond words to be able to give an answer she was sure of—to be free of the uncertainty and indecision that had tortured her in the wood—but Miss Drill was not to know that. "There are very old spells for doing that last bit; spells that have been passed down for a thousand years. We teach them to the girls in their final year as part of the history of magic, though with any luck none of them will ever need to use them."

"My _God_ ," Miss Drill said again. "Every time I think I've learnt all there is to know about witches, the two of you surprise me again."

Constance allowed herself a slight curling of the lips in lieu of a smile. "The truth is, Miss Drill, even witches don't always know all there is to know about witches."

They all sat without saying anything for a minute or two, each absorbed in her own private worries. Outside the windows, a heavy, stormy grey had finally begun to replace the Stygian darkness as the sun cleared the horizon behind the clouds. It had been one of the longest nights of Constance's life, even though she had been unconscious for a sizable chunk of it, and she was glad to see it come to an end, no matter what horrors the new day might have in store.

At last, Miss Drill spoke again.

"You said there were spells to do the last bit of the plan, Miss Hardbroom."

"I did," Constance agreed.

"What about the first bit, where we find the creature and send it back through the door? Have you got some thousand-year-old magic to take care of that too?"

"Ah," Constance said, and exchanged another long, meaningful look with Miss Cackle. "Yes. That's where we may have some difficulty."


	10. Chapter 10

"What sort of difficulty?" Miss Drill asked.

"The old books tell us how to seal a hole between the worlds," Miss Cackle said. "They don't tell us how to put back the things that come out of one. For that we're on our own."

"Well, that's just wonderful." Miss Drill jumped up and began pacing from the sofa to the door, running a hand distractedly through her hair. "How are we meant to do that?"

"There is no _we_ , Miss Drill, or at least not a _we_ that includes you," said Constance. "As a non-witch, you're hardly qualified to—"

"Shut up!" Miss Drill rounded on Constance with a sudden, shocking ferocity that made her grip the arms of her chair for support. "Shut up, shut _up_!"

"Imogen!" Miss Cackle said sharply.

"I'm sorry, Headmistress, I know I shouldn't, but this is just too much." Miss Drill turned back to Constance. "I may not be a witch, Miss Hardbroom, but this is my school too, and I won't be dismissed or condescended to. I _am_ going to help. And as for being a witch, well, being one didn't seem to have done you much good when I was helping Miss Cackle pull you half-dead out of the snow last night. A favour for which you haven't yet bothered to thank me, I might add."

Constance was rarely loath to join in an argument with Miss Drill or anyone else, but the abruptness of the attack, when she was already feeling ill and weak and unlike herself, left her off balance and speechless for once. Miss Cackle saw her floundering and stepped in.

"Perhaps you should apologise to Imogen, Constance," she said, and although her voice was gentle, there was a note of stern disappointment in it that struck Constance to the heart. The Headmistress was one of the very few people on earth whose good opinion she cared for, and the thought of losing it made her feel alarmingly close to tears. She straightened her spine and lifted her chin to ward off the possibility.

"I'm very sorry, Miss Drill," she said stiffly. "Of course we shall all work together to protect the school." She sensed that both Miss Drill and Miss Cackle were still waiting for something, and added, "Thank you for helping me last night."

"And this morning," said Miss Drill.

"And this morning." Constance sent an imploring look at Miss Cackle, who said, "I'm sure she accepts, don't you Imogen?"

Miss Drill's usually smooth forehead was still creased with anger, but she nodded, sat down again, and folded her arms across her chest like a wall.

"Perhaps now we can get back to the matter at hand," said Miss Cackle. "Constance, you said you'd had a glimpse of the doorway and the other side. What did you see there?"

"I really don't remember, Headmistress. It was only for an instant, and so much else was happening. I don't think it was a wood, the way it is on our side; more like chalk hills and grass. I was already down then and unconscious a moment afterward."

Miss Cackle tapped her fingers against her cheek, thinking. "Where was the doorway itself?"

"Not in the clearing, but a bit outside it, round the other way to where we entered and left yesterday." Constance had been studiously ignoring Miss Drill, but now she glanced over at her. "You must have come a different way as well, when you first found the body. You would have seen it otherwise."

"Oh," said Miss Drill in a voice dripping with venom, "do you mean it was so obvious that even a _non-witch_ couldn't have missed it?"

"That is _not_ what I said—" Constance stopped and took a steadying breath. "I mean, it would be visible to the naked eye, but only if someone were looking in that direction at the right moment. I saw it because I was thrown there when I was attacked."

"But we didn't see it when we went to you," Miss Drill said.

"We were a bit distracted," Miss Cackle observed. "You as much as I, Imogen. But, I believe the point is that we'll see it when we go back, so driving the dark man through it will be no problem."

"I told you, it isn't a man," said Constance wearily.

"Don't be pedantic, Constance. I'm more concerned with returning him to where he belongs than with what he is or isn't, so let's talk about how to do that. You said magic didn't work against him, so what other methods have we at our disposal?"

"We can lure him," Miss Drill said. She was leaning forward now, intense and eager. "Let him follow one of us through the doorway, then slip out and close it from the other side. Done and dusted."

"No! Absolutely not; it's far too dangerous. Whoever goes through could be caught, or trapped and not able to get back, or killed by something else on the other side. Or for all we know, the environment on the other side might be instantly fatal to someone from our world. We might end up as dead as those poisonous fish, or the man who touched them. Headmistress, tell her." Constance looked to Miss Cackle, expecting agreement, but found none. "Oh please, no. Tell me you aren't thinking of agreeing with this."

"What else can we do, Constance?"

"I don't know, but there must be something! It's madness simply to go along with the first idea someone throws out at random—"

"No, Miss Hardbroom, it's selfishness to reject that idea out of hand because it wasn't yours, or because it doesn't involve magic!" Miss Drill was on her feet again. "I know you don't believe that non-magical methods are ever better than magical ones, but this time they are, so get over it and just _listen_ to someone else for once in your life!"

Constance leapt up too, ignoring the giddy, nauseous feeling that swept over her as she did, but before she could speak, Miss Cackle was at her side, holding her fast by the arm. It wasn't the steely grip that Mistress Broomhead had so often inflicted on her—the one that had made her gasp for breath and left dark finger-shaped bruises on her wrists—but it was reminiscent enough of that grip to make her stop struggling at once. She looked down, saw that her hands were poised to cast a spell, and forced herself to relax them.

"I wouldn't have, Headmistress," she said to Miss Cackle.

"I know," Miss Cackle said. "I just thought I would remind you." She let Constance go and addressed Miss Drill, whose eyes had rather a hunted look to them. "Imogen, sit down. We aren't going to follow anyone's plan until everyone is calm. Constance, you too. Right here beside me."

They all sat, with Miss Drill taking the armchair and Constance the sofa—not a moment too soon, as her legs had been feeling dangerously wobbly. Whatever sort of force the dark man had used against her, its effects were deep and long-lasting.

"Now," Miss Cackle said, "please share your idea for making this work, Imogen."

Miss Drill swallowed audibly. "Well, we'll need one person to do the luring, and I assume at least one person to close the door. That will have to be one of you two, as I think we've thoroughly established that I can't do magic." She avoided Constance's eyes as she said the last part. "I had better be the one who goes through the doorway—no, hear me out. Miss Hardbroom isn't well, and I'm the fastest at running anyway. I can get in and out with plenty of time to spare, and you can close the door behind me. It can work, I know it can."

Miss Cackle nodded. "We have no choice but to try. The girls will be back with Frank and Davina in a little more than twenty-four hours, and they won't be safe if that doorway is still open and that thing on the loose." She laid a hand on Constance's shoulder almost tenderly. "Constance, I know how you feel, and I am truly sorry about doing this against your wishes, but I would feel better if you would at least agree to help."

"I don't like it, Headmistress, but yes, I'll help. Surely you don't believe I would allow you to go out and face this on your own? Either of you?" Constance levelled a hard stare at Miss Drill, who squirmed.

"No, of course not," Miss Cackle said. "Very well then. Let us prepare."


	11. Chapter 11

"I think we shall begin with a look into your mirror, Constance," Miss Cackle said. "Given what happened the last time any of us set foot in the wood, I'd like to see what's going on there before we return."

"Of course, Headmistress." With a gesture, Constance lifted her pier glass from its place near the windows and transported it through the air to the empty space beside her. It came to rest gently, its giltwood frame making the softest of clicks as it touched the floor and leant itself backward against the sofa's leather seat. Years ago, she had spent a Christmas on her own in Uppsala, searching through every shop and market stall for a scrying mirror, until she had found this one covered in dust and hidden behind a stack of faded oil paintings. She had seen things both beautiful and horrible in its silvered and age-spotted surface, and it was with trepidation that she spoke the spell to show the clearing in the trees.

"There." Miss Cackle pointed with a long, bony finger, being careful not to touch the glass.

"Is that the doorway?" Miss Drill had knelt on the floor in front of Constance and the mirror, apparently having forgot in her fascination with the scrying that she and Constance had been at each other's throats a few minutes before. "That shimmering place, like a mirage?"

"Yes," Constance said. "Look closely. You are seeing something that no one has seen in more than a hundred and seventy years. Something that no one now living, to our knowledge, has seen."

In the mirror's reflected light, Miss Drill's face was rapt and grave at the same time, like a saint seeing a vision. Her eyes flickered across the image from trees to sky and back again. "And the dark man?"

"Nowhere to be found," Miss Cackle said grimly.

"But he's there somewhere. He must be." Miss Drill was up again, bouncing on the balls of her feet as if she were at the start of a race, her lithe, springy body nearly vibrating with the desire to run. "When shall we go?"

"Not yet, I think," Miss Cackle said. "It occurs to me that we've not encountered him in daylight yet. Our victim was killed at night, and it was night when Miss Hardbroom met him. I know time is short, but if we wish to find him, we might do well to wait until dark, or as close as possible. It will give us a chance to gather our strength as well."

She didn't look at Constance as she said the last few words, but Constance knew they were meant mainly for her benefit. It annoyed her to be the weak link, but she knew full well that even with her best reviving and healing potions, she was still vulnerable enough to be a liability rather than a help. She had no intention of either jeopardising their mission or staying behind while it happened without her, so if she had to endure a delay, then endure she would.

"Well, we won't have to wait long," Miss Drill said. "This looks to be one of those days when it never really gets properly light." She looked at her wristwatch. "I'll find you both when the time comes. Let's hope we all get more rest than we did last night. I'm sure we'll need it."

As Miss Drill departed with Miss Cackle close behind, Constance took one last look at the vignette in the mirror, lingering on the eerie glow of the doorway between worlds. Then she passed her hand across it in a wiping-away motion, leaving only the reflection of her own familiar room behind, and returned it to the wall.

She spent her hours of enforced rest in the library, reading her way through every book on the forbidden shelf that mentioned the other world and its inhabitants. Most were cautionary tales of people stumbling through a doorway by accident or going into one on a dare, never to return, or of being killed by monstrous creatures that emerged and dragged them through to the other side. A twelfth-century monk had written an account of what he had seen while performing the spells to close a doorway that had appeared in a sub-cellar of his abbey, talking at length of a nightmare landscape of flame and smoke and sulphur that he and his fellow monks had believed was a portal to Hell. What none of the books mentioned, and what Constance was most concerned with, was whether anyone had ever managed to cross over and come back alive. Miss Drill was irritating and argumentative and utterly non-magical, but she was brave, and Constance had to grudgingly respect that. She didn't want the reward for Miss Drill's bravery to be a terrible death in some other realm, or in their own for that matter.

Sometime in the afternoon, Mrs Tapioca appeared with a bowl of soup and deposited it in front of her as if presenting the crown jewels, neatly avoiding the spread-open books all over the table. Constance looked down at islands of cooked egg and pasta floating around in a yellow sea of broth, felt queasy and started to wave the bowl away, but the cook pulled a clean spoon from a pocket and handed it to her in a manner that allowed no room for refusal.

"Sorry, Miss Hardbroom, but the Headmistress says wait here and make sure you eat." She folded plump hands across the front of her apron and gave Constance an encouraging nod. "I don't use the Cackle's recipe book for this one. It's what I make at home for my boys when they are little and don't feel so good. I think you don't feel so good either, do you?"

"No," Constance admitted with a sigh. She set to work and managed to get through most of the bowl before Mrs Tapioca said "There, that's enough. I don't tell about those last few bites if you don't."

From the air of casual conspiracy with which she said this, Constance suspected that she had probably offered a similar deal to the girls many times when they were meant to be undergoing some punishment or other. It deserved a reprimand, but lacking the energy, Constance simply said, "That would be kind," and let Mrs Tapioca clear away the bowl and spoon.

"You're a little better now?"

"I suppose," Constance said, and discovered to her surprise that it was true; whatever the cook had put in the soup, it had been almost as effective as a potion. "Yes. Thank you."

Mrs Tapioca smiled, but then her face grew sober. "Miss Cackle, she says you all have important work to do tonight and I should go home early again."

"Miss Cackle is quite right," Constance said. "And once you're there, I advise you to stay there. Build up the fire and lock the door behind you. It isn't a good night to go wandering about."

"Maybe not a good night for witches either," Mrs Tapioca said. "You be careful, Miss Hardbroom. The girls need you here when they come back."

"This school existed for a hundred years without me, Mrs Tapioca. I'm quite confident it will carry straight on whether I am here or not." Constance pulled the nearest book toward her, picked up her pen and made a deliberate note. "You had better be getting along, hadn't you? It will be dark soon, and I'm sure you have work to do before you leave."

When Mrs Tapioca had gone, Constance got up from her chair and walked to the library window to test her strength. She still felt shaky, as if she had been ill in bed for a week—something she had not experienced in years, despite spending sixteen hours a day with girls who coughed and sneezed and snuffled their way through every winter—but the nausea and giddiness had faded away. She perched on the wide windowsill and looked out at the frozen world below, as still and silent as the image in her mirror. The snow had stopped for the moment, but the clouds still hung swollen and heavy over castle and wood, so low it seemed they might catch on the treetops. She strained her eyes, looking for any sign that the dark man might have passed by, but the white expanse of the lawn was pristine and unbroken.

 _Where is it?_ she wondered. _Does it know what we mean to do? Has it any awareness at all?_ Some witches were able to read thoughts and emotions, but that was one skill Constance lacked; even Mistress Broomhead's harsh pedagogy had failed to drum it into her past the very beginning level. She had only her own human ability, and she knew it was weak at best. But she had not felt anything at all coming from that dark shape as it walked toward her—not anger, not hate, not fear, not desire. Somehow that alienness, that absence, had been more frightening than evil. She sensed that it could kill them all and barely notice, unless it happened to be hungry.

"Constance, it's time," Miss Cackle said behind her. She turned round and found both her colleagues waiting, Miss Cackle in her thick winter cloak, Miss Drill in black trousers and coat, with a matching knit cap pulled down over her fair hair and trainers on her feet instead of boots. Miss Cackle had brought Constance's own cloak, folded over one arm, and now she shook it out, came forward and stood on tiptoe to drape it over Constance's shoulders.

"Are you strong enough for this?" Her voice was low and worried in Constance's ear.

"Are you, Headmistress?"

"I don't think any of us are," said Miss Cackle, "but we'll have to do it anyway." She fastened the clasp on the cloak and stepped back. "Do the transport, Constance, please. You're best at it."

Constance folded her arms, and all three of them disappeared.


	12. Chapter 12

They appeared in the wood some distance from the doorway, behind a spiky, leafless tangle of hawthorn that Constance had seen in the mirror and noted as good potential cover. It was snowing lightly again, just enough to leave an icing-sugar dust on their cloaks and coats. Miss Drill stamped her feet, unprotected in their thin shoes, and Miss Cackle said "Keep still a moment, Imogen" and cast an antifreeze spell over them.

"Thanks." Miss Drill sniffled and rubbed her nose, which was already red with cold. "Well, here we are. What first?"

"We have a quarter-hour before dark," Constance said, looking up at the bit of sky that showed between the snow-heavy treetops. It had gone a deep, smoky blue-grey and reminded her uncomfortably of something she had seen before, but couldn't quite place. After a moment, she realised it had been the exact colour of the dead woman's eyes, and had to use every bit of her ingrained self-discipline not to shudder.

"Perhaps we should go and have a better look at the doorway while we can," she said.

They moved cautiously around the trees that formed the outer perimeter of the clearing, with Constance in the lead and Miss Drill and Miss Cackle just behind her, close enough for her to feel the soft press of their bodies against her back. When they found what they were looking for, all three of them stopped and stared.

"It's grown since last night," Constance said.

"It's grown since this morning." Miss Cackle walked around Constance, holding up her hands as if to take the doorway's measure. It was roughly oval, about two and a half metres across at its widest point, and half again as tall. Through its bluish shimmer, they could see the landscape Constance had only glimpsed before, looking more or less as she remembered it: a combination of low slopes covered in something long and grasslike, and occasional rocky outcroppings that thrust up as if they were being born, slowly and painfully, through the other world's strange soil.

"No animals or birds," Miss Cackle commented, "at least not in sight."

"Well, that's good," Miss Drill said in a slightly wobbly voice, stepping up to stand at her employer's side. "There'll be less things around to eat me."

"Unless all the animals and birds have already been eaten by something bigger," Constance said.

"For goodness' sake, Miss Hardbroom, if you're going to make comments like that, you can just go on back to the castle." Miss Drill twisted round to scowl at her over one shoulder.

"I am _trying_ to consider all the possibilities," Constance said. "We'll do ourselves no good by sugarcoating things and pretending it's some sort of happy valley full of sunshine over there, instead of another world completely different to this one."

"Well, there's no point being more pessimistic than we must, either," said Miss Cackle dryly. "Look there, Imogen. The doorway is raised a bit off the ground, so you'll need to watch for that when you go through."

Miss Drill nodded. "I've run hurdles races before, loads of times. That bit should be easy enough, except for the snow on the ground. Have either of you got something witchy to help with that?"

"Really, Miss Drill." Constance pointed her fingers, and with a few words, cleared a broad, bare path in the snow leading to the edge of the doorway. "There, is that 'witchy' enough for you?"

"It'll do," said Miss Drill, managing a quirk of a smile that Constance did not return. "Any other helpful tips I should know?"

"Constance, you're the only one who has seen the dark man in the flesh, as it were," Miss Cackle said. "Tell us what you remember."

Constance would have preferred never to recall those moments in the freezing dark again, and if she survived the next hour or so she intended to forget them as thoroughly as possible. But the Headmistress had asked, and for the Headmistress she made an effort.

"It was...slow," she said. "It kept coming and coming, but it never rushed at me or even seemed to hurry, no matter what spell I cast at it. I don't suppose you'll need to run very fast on the way in; just stay ahead of it and save your energy for coming back, when you need a longer lead. And remember that it will take about thirty seconds for us to work the magic to close and seal the doorway after you've come through again."

"I'll be sure to... _oh my God_." All the colour drained from Miss Drill's face in an instant, leaving her as pale and cold as a statue of a woman carved in ice.

"What is it, Imogen?"

"I see him," Miss Drill whispered. "Over there."

Constance and Miss Cackle turned together and saw the dark form outlined against the white backdrop of snow, standing motionless and slightly slumped, as if it had somehow shut itself off until something came along and gave it a reason to move. With the faint purple glow of dusk still in the sky, Constance could see more of it than she had the previous night, and she realised with a deep, welling horror that while it was man-shaped and sized, the difference was in the details. Instead of fingers, it had long pincers at the end of armlike appendages with too many joints, and instead of human features, it had a concave disc like an owl's face, with blind pits for eyes and a wide, lipless gash for a mouth. The mouth was slightly open, and inside they all saw a triple row of innumerable needle-like teeth.

"Both of you get away," Miss Drill said, low and taut. "Quick! He hasn't noticed any of us yet. Get under cover and let him see me first. He'll follow me, I'm sure of it."

"We'll wait half an hour after you go in." Miss Cackle took Miss Drill's hand, squeezed it warmly. "But after that, Imogen, we'll have to close the door no matter what happens. We cannot leave it open when it's growing this way. I hope you understand."

"I understand." Miss Drill's eyes were fixed over Miss Cackle's shoulder, keeping track of the enemy. "I'll be back before then. I promise."

"I know you will," Miss Cackle said. "Come along, Constance." She slipped off to one side, moving with the gliding, silent steps that all witches were taught to use in grand processions. Constance started to follow, but then hung back.

"Go on! He'll see you in a moment. What are you waiting for?"

Constance looked from Miss Drill, small and slender and resolute in her black clothing, to the hideous creature beyond her. She felt she ought to say something—some word of thanks or encouragement or caution—but everything that came to mind sounded trite and stupid. At last she muttered, "Good luck," and slid away in the same direction as the Headmistress.

From their place behind a tree, they watched Miss Drill as she stood alone, staring through gently drifting snowflakes at the shape that still had not moved. Miss Cackle put her arms round Constance, and for once, Constance had not even the slightest desire to resist. The tension drew out longer and longer until it was nearly unbearable, and then Miss Drill lifted her hands to her face, put two fingers in her mouth, and gave a piercing whistle that cut the air like a silver blade.

The dark man's drooping posture changed in a flash: the misshapen head shot up, and the hollow places where its eyes should have been turned to Miss Drill as if they could see her.

"That's right, come and get me!" Miss Drill shouted, and with the same methodical, single-minded march that Constance remembered so well, the dark man started toward her. It waded through the snow, closer and closer, and as it reached the bare earth of the path Constance had cleared, it reached out with its many-jointed arms, pincers opening and closing with a dull clacking sound. Miss Drill let out a single terrified moan, and they saw her gloved hands clench into fists at the ends of her coat sleeves, but she stood her ground until it was almost close enough to touch her. Then she turned as nimbly as a deer, sprinted the few steps to the doorway between worlds, and disappeared as she vaulted into it in a single smooth motion.

The dark man never broke stride or stopped in its advance. Still holding out its arms as if for balance, it lifted one leg over the threshold of the doorway with its next step, then followed with the other and was gone. It left nothing behind in the wood but trees and snow and two frightened witches, holding tight to each other and waiting to see what would happen next.


	13. Chapter 13

In the other world, Miss Drill ran for her life.

She'd more than half expected to be killed as soon as she crossed over, so simply not being dead felt like a minor victory. There was air she could breathe, her skin hadn't melted off, she hadn't collapsed into a pile of goo or felt her blood turn to boiling lava in her veins—all things that as a closet science-fiction fan (she sometimes traded books with Ruby Cherrytree, a secret that would probably have turned Miss Hardbroom's own blood to boiling lava had she known it), she had been able to imagine vividly. It had taken more raw courage to leap through that doorway than either of her colleagues had realised.

However, to say that all was well would have been a wild overstatement. The atmosphere in the other world was not fatal to humans, at least not immediately, but it was _wrong_ , heavy and oppressive and a little too thick, like breathing water. It made her sluggish and leaden-footed, and she had worked out almost at once that it was the reason the dark man moved the way he did: he was adapted for this environment, not the one in her world. He was still slower than she was, but she was tiring fast, while he just kept going, covering the ground with that steady tramping stride. If she didn't manage to widen her lead or lose him somehow, eventually she would run out of steam and he would catch her, and then...

It didn't bear thinking about. She gritted her teeth and tried to pour on a little more speed, but the terrain didn't make it easy. That was another thing that was wrong: what had looked like grass through the doorway was really long strands of something flexible and sticky that caught at her trouser legs and tried to wrap round her ankles. It was a colour that was neither grey nor brown nor green and hurt her eyes to look at it, like the stones and the hills and the sunless, starless, cloudless sky that came down too low, a smothering roof over the world.

Miss Drill spared a glance back over her shoulder and saw that the dark man had shortened the distance between them again. The hollow eye-pits stared straight ahead; the pincers clacked open and shut, open and shut.

She looked at her wristwatch. Twenty-five minutes to go.

She ran on.

* * *

Back in the wood, Constance had paced in front of the doorway until her legs had begun threatening to give out again, and she'd been forced to brush the snow away from a fallen log and sit down to rest. Miss Cackle had taken up the post in her place, and was alternating between peering into the doorway's blue glow and checking the time on an old-fashioned fob watch.

"Twenty minutes left," she reported. "We mustn't give up hope yet, Constance. That's still quite a bit of time."

Constance shook her head. "I should have gone with her, or instead of her."

"You couldn't have. You know perfectly well you're not strong enough yet, and anyway I need you here to help with the sealing spells. Imogen is tough and I have every confidence she'll be back in time."

"I hope you're right, Headmistress," Constance said. She felt a cough coming on, but managed to stifle it before it turned into a paroxysm. "How long now?"

"Eighteen minutes and thirty seconds," Miss Cackle said.

* * *

"Get back!" Miss Drill hurled a stone that fell far short of its mark, as if the strange, thick air weighed it down. The dark man, now only ten metres or so behind her, halted briefly in his approach but did not stop. Gasping, she turned and ran on, ignoring the sweat trickling into her eyes and the cramp like a hot poker in her side. Her coat and hat were long gone, thrown to one side as she ran.

She had tried to to climb a hill a few minutes before, thinking it would put a little more distance between them, but had realised her mistake when the dark man went down on all fours, dug in with his pincers, and swarmed up the slope faster than she had ever thought he could move. He'd been halfway to the top before she stopped staring at him in revulsion and all but threw herself down the other side to get away, and she hadn't been able to regain her lead since. They were travelling deeper and deeper into the other world; she was at the seventeen-minute mark now, and would have to start heading in the other direction almost at once if she meant to get back to the doorway before Miss Cackle and Miss Hardbroom closed it. Her fertile imagination supplied an image of the blue portal winking closed just as she reached it, leaving her alone to run and hide as best she could until the dark man caught her, or she starved to death here under this alien sky.

 _Not if I can help it_ , she thought. Stopping to scoop up two more stones, she flung them at her pursuer in rapid succession, then turned and began making her way along a ridge toward another slope, in a long, shallow curve that would start taking her back toward safety. At the crest, she stumbled and fell to one knee with her palms flat on the ground, and as she pushed herself up, grimacing at the feel of the sticky non-grass, she saw what awaited her on the other side.

"Oh, no," she moaned aloud. "Oh, please, no."

* * *

"How long now?" Constance had forced herself up off the log and was at the portal again, straining to catch any sign of Miss Drill's return. The view on the other side was distorted by the shimmer, but clear enough for her to know that the search was fruitless.

"Seven minutes to go," said Miss Cackle, who was beginning to look as worried as Constance felt. "I did think she would be here by now."

"She can't possibly get back in seven minutes, Headmistress. We would be able to see her through the doorway by now if she were that close. We'll simply have to wait longer, that's all."

"Constance, we can't. It's grown even while we've been waiting here. Suppose it gets so big we can't close it at all; what will we do then?"

"I don't _know_ ," Constance snapped. "I'm sure we'll think of something. Just a few more minutes, Headmistress. Please."

* * *

Miss Drill scrambled to the side of the ridge, keeping away from the dark man behind her while trying to count the number of identical dark men in the hollow below her. There were at least fifteen or twenty, all standing around in the dull, switched-off way that the original dark man had done before it saw her in the wood. They reminded her madly of a herd of cattle, if cattle were relentless predators that came to life and slowly, methodically ran you to earth and ate you.

What was she to do? In desperation, she crawled further along the ridge, and all at once she was sliding and falling over a small outcropping that she hadn't realised was there. She nearly screamed, but choked it off—biting her tongue so hard in the process that the salty, coppery taste of blood exploded in her mouth—and landed heavily on her bum with her legs stretched out in front of her. Panting, heart hammering against her ribs, she waited for the dark man's pincers to reach over and drag her up to be torn apart and then devoured.

Nothing happened.

After a seemingly endless moment, she wriggled round and poked her head up just enough to see what was going on. The dark man was less than three metres away, but instead of trudging toward her, he had stopped and adopted the same pose as his friends down below. She gaped at him, trying to understand, and then in a flash saw what it meant: when she had disappeared temporarily from view, he had forgotten she existed and gone back into his resting state. Until she moved again and caught his attention, he would stand there just like the others. Until she moved again, she was safe.

As quietly as possible, she slid down behind the outcropping again and sat with her back against it. She wiped sweat off her forehead with one arm, and then she turned her wrist over to check the time and her heart sank.

Two minutes.

* * *

"It's almost time. We'll have to begin preparing." Miss Cackle pulled a crumbling old book from underneath her cloak, where she had kept it safe from the snow, and held it up for Constance to see. "I brought this. It's been fifty years since I learnt these spells as a schoolgirl."

"Headmistress, we can't let her die without at least trying to help. Let me go in and—"

"Absolutely not, Constance. We are not even going to discuss it. You can barely stand, much less run from monsters, and I refuse to lose you as well."

"I won't have to stand or run if I fly," Constance said stubbornly. She thrust a hand out in front of her, palm down.

"You can't—" Miss Cackle began, but was drowned out by the words of the summoning spell. There was a pause, and then a broomstick shot between the trees from the direction of the castle, straight and true, coming to a quivering, obedient halt in front of its mistress.

"No!" Miss Cackle put her own hand out, but the broomstick ignored her. "You don't even know if it will fly on the other side. Magic didn't work against the dark man; who's to say it works in that world at all?"

"If it doesn't fly, I'll turn around and come straight back." Constance sat sideways on the broom and clasped it with both hands, inwardly shocked at how weak her grip felt.

"That is a bald-faced lie. You'll get yourself killed right along with her. At least let me go instead."

"No, Headmistress. The school is yours; you need to be here to run it." She lifted her feet off the ground and shifted her weight, finding the right balance. "Close the door when you must, but give me as long as you dare. And don't worry too much. Miss Drill isn't the only tough one, you know."

"Constance, no!"

Miss Cackle shouted it so loudly that her throat was left raw, but Constance was already gone.

* * *

_(Hope this came out all right...writing action is not my strong point!)_


	14. Chapter 14

Trapped in her inadequate shelter, Miss Drill was considering her options and finding them all equally unpalatable. If she stayed where she was, she would die of exposure and thirst. If she ran, the dark men would tear her apart and kill her. Her impending death seemed so inevitable that she felt more numb than frightened about it. Stay and die or run and die? Action or inaction? It reminded her of the logic riddles that had always made her head ache when she was a girl at school. Either way, it seemed certain she would never see her own world or anyone she loved again.

In the end, she decided that if running would give her a chance, even a minuscule one, she'd have to take it. Cautiously, she put her head up to see what Dark Man Number One was doing behind her (still standing there in his mindless daze) and then peered over the edge of the ridge to check on Dark Men Numbers Two through Twenty (the same). She returned to her place and sat there for a few seconds, flexing her feet inside her shoes, stretching her calf muscles out to give herself the best possible chance. Then, as silently as she could, she got into a sprinter's stance, bracing her rear foot against the rock outcropping as if it were a starting block. She wasn't religious at all and never had been, but as she crouched there, waiting for the moment to feel right, she tried to send a sort of nondenominational plea to anything supernatural that might be out there and in a mood to help her.

 _One, two, three, NOW_ , she thought, and burst out of her hiding place, running as hard as she could in the other world's heavy unnatural atmosphere. She hadn't gone ten steps before something slammed into her from behind, and she felt herself being caught in a fierce grip and pulled up helplessly, rising in the air until the toes of her trainers grazed along the ground and then left it altogether. She closed her eyes, not wanting to see the monstrous mouth with its needle-like teeth opening to rip out the first dripping chunk of her flesh, and then a familiar voice spoke just above her head.

"Get on the broomstick," Constance ordered, sounding somewhat strained. "Hurry! I can't hold you for long."

"Miss _Hardbroom_?" Miss Drill opened her eyes and found herself half dangling from the back end of Constance's broomstick, with one of Constance's black-clad arms wrapped around her middle. She could smell the faint, familiar scent of dried herbs and flowers that hung about Constance all the time, and for a moment she felt they were in the staffroom, preparing to quarrel over whose turn it was for playground duty.

"Obviously," Constance said. "Now get on. No, hold onto the stick, not onto me." Weak with shock and relief, Miss Drill clutched at the stick and managed to turn, pull herself up and perch on it sideways. As it took her full weight, it pitched over at a drunken angle, and she held back a shriek.

"Slide back toward the brush end. I'm heavier than you are and we'll have to balance ourselves properly." Constance leant over, nudging her along, and the broom's nose came up and levelled out.

Miss Drill groaned. She knew it was possible to ride double on a broomstick, of course—she'd seen the girls do it a hundred times when Constance was not there to tell them off for it—but there was a difference between a pair of spindly twelve-year-olds and two full-grown women. She was fairly sure that they were now both going to die instead of just her.

"Ssshht! Stop moaning and help me. Up," Constance addressed the last word to the broom in a commanding tone, and it seemed to gather itself with almost human intent before struggling upward, then sinking down again as if exhausted.

"Can't you get any higher? We're barely above the ground."

"No. The air's all wrong for flying here. Anyway, it won't matter in a moment." Constance shifted her weight again and the broom started forward with a sickening lurch.

"What does that mean—argh!" Miss Drill squeezed her eyes shut once more as the broomstick sailed over the edge of the ridge and dropped like a stone into the hollow below. She opened them just in time to see all the dark men in the hollow wake as one from their trance and begin to move about, turning their concave faces skyward and tracking the broomstick's flight rather like a field full of radar dishes. The broom swooped down at an angle until it was skimming along just above them, and Miss Drill pulled her feet up as high as she could, having visions of an especially long-armed dark man reaching up and catching her by the ankle, or perhaps firing off a blast of the force that had nearly done for Constance in their own world.

"What happened to the one on the hill?" she asked, remembering that it had been nearly close enough to snatch her as soon as it awakened.

"I flew up behind it and kicked it in the head," Constance said. "Then I came along and collected you. Lean to the right, we need to turn."

"Where are we going, though?" asked Miss Drill, leaning obediently and resisting the urge to grab hold of Constance again as they banked over to one side and swept around the group of dark men, heading back to where they had started. "The time's already run out; the door will be closed."

"I asked the Headmistress to wait a little longer," Constance said. "If we find ourselves in luck, it will still be open when we get there."

"What if we don't find ourselves in luck?"

"What do you think?"

"I think we'd better hope that doesn't happen," said Miss Drill.

Constance, for her part, felt they must nearly be out of luck by now. Despite what she had said to the Headmistress, she hadn't really expected the broomstick to fly in the other world, and had been amazed and relieved when it had—not well, but enough to serve its purpose. She'd been even more astonished when, wondering how to find Miss Drill in this strange landscape, she had looked down and seen a long, straggling trail of dark prints where Miss Drill had crushed the grass as she ran. Surely it would be too much to ask for the doorway to be open as well. Constance knew in her heart that the Headmistress would wait until the last possible moment for her to come back—longer than she had been willing to wait for Miss Drill—but she also knew that if the Headmistress had to close the door, she would. It was the right thing to do, and she had told the Headmistress herself to do it, but still she hoped against hope that the decision had not been taken yet.

"Lean left," she told Miss Drill, and Miss Drill complied as best she could. Constance had to admit that for a non-witch who had never sat on a broomstick before, she was doing well; it was Constance's own magic powering the broom, but Miss Drill was doing her bit to keep them on course. If only this place had a breath of wind, anything to help them go faster...

"There!" Miss Drill didn't dare let go to point, but Constance looked where she was looking and saw the blue shimmer of the doorway ahead of them, grown even larger in the twenty-odd minutes since she had come through it. Then she looked lower and saw a sight that made her stomach go weak and watery: a pair of dark men, converging on the doorway from both sides with the inhuman walk she had learnt to loathe. Miss Drill saw them too, and jerked with surprise in a way that made the broomstick swerve dangerously.

"Stop that," Constance snapped.

"But—"

"I know."

"What are we going to do?"

Constance drew a deep breath that made her chest hurt. "We shall just have to fly over them, or around them."

"But they're almost there!"

"I can see that, Miss Drill." She clasped her hands on the broomstick, hoping that she wasn't about to kill them both. "If we dive, we may be able to get a bit more speed."

"We aren't high up enough to dive," Miss Drill protested. "Even I know that."

"Never mind, just lean when I lean!" Constance shifted forward and drove the broom toward the ground, and the long grass seemed to sense them coming and extended eager tendrils at their approach. When they were almost close enough for their feet to brush it, she willed an extra infusion of magic through her hands, and the broom flattened out and somehow managed to go faster. They surged toward the doorway and the two dark men approaching it, and as they did, the glow began to pulse, contracting a little with each flash.

"What's it doing?"

"Closing," said Constance grimly. "Hold on."

The doorway was three-quarters its size—half its size—a quarter its size, but still wide enough for the dark men, who were almost upon it, to pass through. As the broomstick approached, Constance could see Miss Cackle on the other side, open book in hand, and realised it was she whose movement had somehow attracted the creatures' attention in the other world and spurred them into motion. She hoped the Headmistress would see what was happening and move out of the way, because the dark men had no intention of stopping, and she and Miss Drill could not.

The ground tilted madly as they swerved to one side and then the other, searching for the best way around the dark men, and then at the very last moment, they slid into the space between and straight through the disorienting veil. As the broomstick felt the thin, crisp air of its own world, it bucked once and shot forward as if launched from a cannon, travelling just above ground level all the way along the cleared path in front of the doorway before driving itself into the heaped-up snow at the end, dumping both its passengers in the process.

"Get her up, Imogen!" Miss Cackle shouted from her place by the still-shrinking doorway, where she had prudently stepped to one side. "I need her help to do the sealing!"

Still dazed from the sudden stop and the shock of falling into a snowbank, Constance felt Miss Drill grab her under the arms and haul her up until she could get her feet beneath her. Once she was standing, she shook the small, strong hands off and stumbled toward the Headmistress, who was reading her way through the second half of the closing spell while keeping one eye on the dark man in the lead. It was nearly at the doorway, and then it was there, _right there_ , mouth gaping, teeth glistening. A long pincer-tipped arm reached through the opening; Miss Drill gasped; and then the doorway collapsed into a shimmering pinpoint and cut the arm off neatly and bloodlessly at its fourth joint.

"Are you all right?" Miss Cackle looked at Constance, and she nodded to save her breath. "Thank heavens. Now let's finish this."

The sealing spell was six lines long, which was five more than Constance would have preferred, but she and the Headmistress read every one of them together in strong, clear voices. When they reached the last word of the last line, the pinpoint blinked out of existence as if it had never been there.

The sealing was complete.


	15. Chapter 15

There was a brief silence after the doorway had vanished, and then Miss Drill said "Is it over?"

"Yes, Miss Drill, it's over." Constance sat down heavily on the log, feeling as if she might never get up again.

"Thank goodness for that." Miss Drill came over carrying Constance's broomstick, which she had fished out of the snow and brushed off as well as she could. "Here. I don't think it's damaged, but you'll know better than I." She cracked a faint smile. "That was a landing worthy of Mildred Hubble. I'm going to tell her all about it when I see her. She'll love hearing that the great Constance Hardbroom crashed into a snowbank."

Constance glared up at her, and Miss Drill laughed. "I'm winding you up, Miss Hardbroom. It was a brilliant rescue and I'm grateful for it. You saved my life. Thank you."

"Oh," said Constance, mollified. "Well. You're very welcome."

"You've both done a hero's duty," said Miss Cackle, closing the spell book and tucking it back into an inner pocket, "and the school and I owe you a great debt. As does the world, I dare say. Who knows what might have happened if the doorway had grown any larger, or if something had come through it that was worse than the dark men?"

"The dark men were more than enough," said Constance.

"No one will ever know, though," Miss Drill said. "All the people in the village and round about. They have no idea what happened here, or that they were ever in danger."

"They rarely do," said Miss Cackle. "Part of being a witch or wizard is knowing about things of which the rest of the world is blissfully ignorant."

"Speaking of wizards," said Constance, "do you intend to inform them about this now that it's finished?"

Miss Cackle nodded. "There can be no question now that we had anything to do with the woman's death, and a doorway between the worlds is such a rare event that the wizards will need to know about it—not to mention that we now have two firsthand accounts from people who have crossed over and survived. I expect they will want to interview you both for their records."

"Oh, good," said Constance. "An afternoon in a stuffy room with a lot of pompous old wizards will be just the thing to make this unfortunate experience complete." Bracing herself against the log with both hands, she stood up, smoothed her hair and shook her cloak into place. "Perhaps I should lower the Sempiternum Shield, Headmistress. We won't be needing to preserve the scene anymore."

Miss Drill looked around, spied the dark end of a long stick poking through the snow, plucked it out and offered it to Constance like a gift. "Here, this can be your staff." She grinned. "See? I've made myself useful."

Against her will, Constance found herself smiling back. "I suppose you have at that." She faced the shield, stopped a moment to focus and compose herself, and then spoke the reversing spell. With a green flash, the shield vanished, and the first few snowflakes drifted lazily onto the clean carpet of leaves and the burnt outline where the dead woman's body had lain.

"It'll all be covered up by morning if the snow keeps on this way," Miss Drill said. "By springtime no one will be able to tell she was ever there, the poor thing. What will we say to her friends or family if they come looking for her? It's bad enough she's dead, but to tell them she was _eaten_..."

"If anyone asks, we'll leave that bit out, I think," said Miss Cackle. "We don't know for certain that she was, after all. It will be enough to say that she was taken through to the other world. The stories about it are so well-known that no one will question it."

"Fair enough," said Miss Drill. She paused. "There's one thing I was wondering about. Why weren't we attacked in the other world the way she and Miss Hardbroom both were in this one? We saw a whole crowd of dark men there, and I was expecting them to blast us with that blue light at any moment, but they didn't."

"I have a theory about that," Constance said, and both women turned to look at her.

"What is it, Constance?" Miss Cackle asked.

"Well," Constance said, "the dark men don't appear to do much of their own volition. They must have at least a few built-in drives—hunger, obviously, and probably some sort of reproduction—"

"Eurgh," said Miss Drill.

"But for the most part," Constance went on, as if Miss Drill had not spoken, "they react to what happens around them. The one I met in the wood came after me when it saw me moving, so I tried to stop it with magic. It seems likely that the dead woman must have done the same. Any witch would have."

"A light...the spell," Miss Cackle said. "Those were her words, weren't they?"

"Yes," said Constance. "When I cast spells at it, it struck back at me in the same manner. But in the other world, we never used magic against the dark men we saw—Miss Drill because she isn't a witch, and I because it hadn't worked when I tried before—and so they didn't respond to us in that way. For all we know, they may not even have any magic of their own; they may simply absorb and redirect the magic that's directed at them. I suppose somebody would have to capture one and study it to be certain."

"You won't catch me volunteering for that," Miss Drill said. She rubbed her hands together, then up and down her arms, trying to generate some warmth. "Can we go back to the castle? I'm half frozen. I left my coat in the other world and a dark man is probably wearing it by now."

"Yes, it's time to go," Miss Cackle said. "Constance, you too. The girls will be back in the morning, and we must be ready to greet them. I prescribe long, hot baths and early bedtimes for all three of us."

"Definitely," said Miss Drill. "I always have a hot bath after I save the world."

She and Miss Cackle both laughed, and for once, Constance got the joke and laughed too. It was a surprisingly enjoyable feeling.

* * *

The hired coach pulled into the courtyard just before noon and quickly disgorged its burden of sixty chattering girls, along with Miss Bat, twittering away and pulling twigs and pine cones from the birds' nest of her hair, and Mr Blossom, whose normally good-natured face looked rather shell-shocked.

Mildred Hubble was last out, struggling along with an overstuffed bag, a dirty, bedraggled bouquet of fallen leaves and dry plant stalks clutched in her hands. The sole of one of her boots had come loose at some point during the last two days, and flapped with each step like a mouth opening and closing. She flapped her way across the snowy courtyard to Constance, who put out an arm to stop her.

"What is that you're holding, Mildred?"

"They're to go in my room, Miss Hardbroom. Miss Bat says that bringing a bit of nature indoors is good for your psychic energy." She smiled hopefully up at Constance, all clear blue eyes and rounded, childish cheeks. "They're pretty, aren't they?"

"Not quite the word I would have used," said Constance. "But I suppose if you want to decorate your room with weeds, it's your own affair. Just don't expect any sympathy if they make you sneeze."

"No, Miss Hardbroom." Mildred bit her lip and gazed around the courtyard, seeming to take in the whole castle at once, before looking at Constance again. "Everything's all right now, isn't it, Miss Hardbroom? Here at school, I mean."

"I told you two days ago that everything was all right, Mildred. Are you insinuating that I am a liar?"

"No, of course not, Miss Hardbroom. It's just things feel better than when we left. Perhaps it's because it snowed while we were gone. I think everything always looks nicer in the snow, fresher and cleaner and—"

"Enough! Mildred, you do have a tendency to babble."

"Sorry, Miss Hardbroom."

"Hm," said Constance. She regarded the girl and found, to her surprise, that she felt a certain exasperated pleasure at seeing her again. She supposed it was just the relief of dealing with a familiar problem for a change.

"Well, Mildred," she said, "although I think we've agreed that nothing at all was wrong when you left, I can assure you that even less is wrong now, and that school shall carry on just as usual. Is that enough to satisfy you?"

"Yes, Miss Hardbroom." Mildred bent her head and studied the grubby treasures in her hands, but not before Constance saw the smile playing round the corners of her mouth.

"Good. Now hurry and get inside before you've missed lunch. Mrs Tapioca has been feeding the cats while you girls have been away, so be sure to thank her for looking after your Tabby when you see her. And for heaven's sake, go to the library after you've finished eating and look up the spell to repair your boot sole. You'll find the book on the third shelf to the left of the windows."

"Yes, Miss Hardbroom," Mildred said, and flapped away toward the castle door, lugging her bag and her bouquet. Constance watched her go, shaking her head at the walking disaster that was Mildred Hubble, and then shielded her eyes and looked up at the white winter sky, where patches of frosty blue were just beginning to appear between the clouds.

Mildred had spoken the truth, she thought. Everything was definitely all right now.

From the castle, she heard the familiar hubbub of girls running amok, as they always did after some special trip or treat. What they needed—what they _all_ needed—was to get back to a routine, at the double.

With keys jingling at her waist and boots making a sharp, satisfying click on the frozen cobbles, she turned on her heel and strode back inside to begin imposing order on the chaos.

* * *

_And that's the end! Thanks for sticking with it. I hope you enjoyed reading as much as I enjoyed writing._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And that's the end! Thanks for sticking with it. I hope you enjoyed reading as much as I enjoyed writing.


End file.
